Come True
by Trauma Girl
Summary: "I stared at the restaurant and its glowing sign for a few seconds, then tried to reason out that maybe this was the set of the show. I had an overwhelming urge to touch it and make sure it was real." OC/Everybody
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: The Hardest Part Of Waking Up Is Finding Your Clothes

I'd like to say that when I woke up, I opened my eyes, laid there for a moment, and calmly thought about my situation. I didn't. I'm just not that kind of girl. As soon as I woke up and felt leaves and grass and rocks digging into my body, I jumped up off the ground and began panicking.

"ANTS! BUGS! ANTS IN MY VAGINA!"

When I was a little kid, I hardly ever cleaned my room and I usually left food sitting out. I'm not proud of it, but I was and am lazy when it comes to chores. Besides, it never caused a problem, as long as my mom didn't know about it. Well, that is, until the ants eventually discovered a way into my room. One night, they came in through the window, which my bed was under. The next morning, I woke up and felt crumbs in my bed. And the crumbs were moving.

Growing up in Florida, I was no stranger to bugs and I could stomp a roach or a spider with the best of them. But after the ants had gotten in my bed and under my covers, my greatest fear was born. Not a fear of all insects necessarily, but of the ones that could manage to get wherever they wanted to go. I mean, if my bed, my haven, wasn't immune to ants, then nowhere was safe... least of all my orifices.

So, as soon as I was standing, I wildly brushed all the dirt off of my body and checked every crevice for creatures. Miracle upon miracles, I was alright. I stared up at the full moon above me, the only light in the area, as I pondered the dilemma before me. "Why exactly am I naked?"

A million reasons ran through my head and I decided to imagine the worst possible and work back from there. "Shit. Was I raped?" I didn't feel any pain between my legs, and I didn't feel like I was wet or sticky or anything. But who knew how long I'd been out here... and he could've used a condom... Was I being politically incorrect to call the might-be-rapist a he?

I decided to look around the slight clearing where I was for my clothes and some evidence of what happened to me. I thought that maybe I would find a used condom or some beer bottles with DNA. When I didn't see anything in the immediate area, my nakedness started to bother me. Even though I was pretty sure there was no one else in these woods, it was still upsetting to think of someone coming wandering through and seeing everything I had to offer.

Deciding I could hold my breasts with one arm, I hit a wall when trying to figure out how to cover up between my legs. "Come on, Molly. Ass or vagina. Make a choice." It was a Sophie's Choice of nakedness. One hand could cover the front, but my vagina was more between my legs... who cared if they saw the light triangle of hair in front? It wasn't like they could see labia or anything. But then again, what did it matter if someone saw my ass cheeks? People wore thongs all the time on the beach.

I grew frustrated at the whole 50/50 decision thing and decided to just grab a leafy branch to hold in front of me. It was basically as good as hiding behind a bush. If it worked for Eve, it could work for me.

I walked around to do a more thorough search, never straying too far from where I woke up, but I couldn't find anything. I figured I might have missed something, but I doubted it. The full moon was lighting the area pretty well. There was no evidence to be found of a party, let alone anything that even suggested a person had been there in a while. But it did smell like there had been a fire.

At first I was disappointed to not find any clues that I could Nancy Drew into a theory of how I'd gotten there, but then I came to the conclusion that I was impressed by whoever had dragged me out here. "Damn right I didn't find anything. If I was raped, it sure as hell better have been someone smart enough to take the condom with him... I'm not going to get some jerkoff on his first time out."

I laughed at that, and barely kept from slapping myself across the face. "I'm the stupidest bitch on the face of the Earth. I wake up naked and start complimenting the rapist for being smart enough to trick me."

Half crossing my arms, half hugging myself, I tried to get ahold of my common sense. "Come on, Molly. Think. And maybe stop talking to yourself." I felt like if someone found me, talking to no one and naked, they'd definitely think I was crazy.

But then I decided that I didn't really care. If ever there were a time to let go of my neuroses, this was it. "You were abducted and taken to a place that I'm almost positive we've never been to before. No worries about looking like an asshole right now. All your insanity will be forgiven later."

I was right. Logic was what I needed now, not low self-esteem. I could be as crazy as I wanted, as long as I figured out what happened to me. So I tried to walk myself through the questions a cop might ask. Like, what was the last thing I remembered?

I was sure I didn't remember being abducted. I felt like I went to bed and then just woke up here. But who was to say that I wasn't recalling going to sleep because that's what I should've done? "Okay, calm down. Don't think about what you don't know, think about what you do know. Try to think of something specific. Like, what's the last thing you remember watching on TV?"

Of course. TV was my sanity. I was always obsessed with one show or another. Elementary school was Sailor Moon. Middle and most of high school was Buffy. If anything was a good timeline of my life, it was television.

But then I remembered that it was June. There was no new TV. All I could think of were reruns. There would be no hope found there. Hell, True Blood wasn't even starting for 2 weeks yet. Wait! True Blood!

Being a huge fan, time had been moving all too slowly as I edged closer to season 5, so I had spent the night getting in the mood for the upcoming premiere by doodling on my calendar a very detailed set of little vampire-fanged Smiley Faces. Then I went to bed early and read fanfic, because I was supposed to go out with my mom the next morning. I was sure that it had been Sunday night, exactly two weeks til the premiere. So, June 5th.

"Yes! You remembered the last moment of your life! Good job, Molly!" I began to do a celebratory dance, but then my breasts started bouncing a little too much and I was brought back to reality. Right. Naked. Other problems to solve. Dance comes later.

So the last night that I could recall was a Sunday. What did that tell me?

Well, I wouldn't have partied on a Sunday... Maybe on a Thursday, but not on Sunday through Wednesday. I had SOME standards. So it wasn't like I took some bad acid or went out to a bar and drank from a cup that wasn't mine. Besides, even if I had taken something on the Thursday after, there was no drug that erased nearly a WEEK of memory. Even Rohypnol's not that good.

Thinking about the past wasn't the treasure trove of solutions that I thought it would be. It wasn't going to be like Saw, where I'd recall someone coming from behind me and putting a rag over my mouth. I was right back where I started: naked in the woods with no answers.

Just then, a loud car with a bass-thumping beat passed nearby. I was annoyed for a split-second before I realized that it meant there was a road. I could flag down someone from there. I could get help. Clothes. The police. I could get home.

I began walking in the direction I assumed the music was coming from. It had seemed close by, but there were no street lights that I could see through the trees. Where was I that was so far from street lights? The Everglades?

I stopped walking when I realized that I was probably going to have to bring the cops back here. I found my way back to where I woke up and dragged a few big branches over to mark the area with an X. I returned to my hike and, as I made my way through the forest, I dragged another log over to my path every once in a while. I broke off branches as much as I could until my hands started to hurt.

It wasn't long before the trees ended and I had reached the open area of the street. It was paved, but not super-paved like the interstate. It reminded me of the shale drive that I lived on in Vero Beach. There were no mile markers. I pulled two more branches over and placed them in another X near the curb.

Faced with the question of how to make my next move, I stared up and down in each direction of the road, but I couldn't decide which way was more likely to lead to help. Both alternatives looked exactly the same: a dark, never-ending path with no sign of hope.

I'd taken long drives on back roads like this ever since I had a driver's license. The Old Melbourne Highway was a personal favorite. Even though I could sometimes make better time on I-95, I always took 192 when I was going home from college because it was so quiet and pitch black. At night, it was a beautiful trip with hardly any other cars on the road. It made me feel like I could've been driving anywhere, forever.

Old Mel had hardly any street lights. There were no stores, but there was a ranch every once in a while and a Christian campsite. It was called "Jesus Chap," as the 'el' was knocked off or not lit up properly. I always giggled when I passed it, thinking of that Jesus Chap. Besides that, though, it was probably a good 90 miles of nothing.

Now, without my lovable little Toyota, the possibility that this road was just like 192 loomed in front of me. Whatever direction I chose, I could very possibly wind up taking either the short way or the long way to civilization. Or I could be at the very middle.

Faced with another 50/50 decision, I smiled and shook my head at myself. "Well, then it really doesn't matter, does it? Pick a lane, Molly."

I turned left and walked towards any oncoming traffic. Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought that this was somehow illegal. Was this what jaywalking was? I remembered my mother always told me to walk and bicycle on the correct side of the road, because then you wouldn't get run over. But I never truly understood that advice. Pedestrian law was an alien idea to me because I always had my car or I didn't go anywhere. But when my mother gave me advice, I usually listened to it.

Except this was a situation where I was trying to see a car coming, not trying to avoid them. So I overruled my mother's voice in my head. This was the smarter way. I could see the headlights coming toward me instead of having my back to them.

Despite this plan, I didn't actually look for any oncoming cars as I went forward. I stared at my feet and the ground for most of the way. I was afraid that I might step on broken glass or an ant hill, or even squish my toes into dead road kill, and the last thing I needed was to fuck my feet up when I probably had a lot of walking ahead of me.

It turned out it was pretty reasonable to watch where I was treading. There was quite a bit of litter, including a few beer bottles, and I was careful to step over anything that looked iffy. But then I saw an empty-ish True Blood bottle about 5 feet away from the curb. I grinned at the idea that someone else had bought some from the HBO website. For about half a second, I entertained the thought of picking it up and keeping it, but the idea was crazy. "Really, Molly. Priorities here! Just keep walking." Besides, I had my own at home. Expanding my collection was not important.

I started singing to myself a song that I knew most of the words to. It was a strategy I used whenever I went to Disney World and got so tired that I could barely make my way back to the parking lot. I would sing Every Morning by Sugar Ray and just keep focusing on moving my feet to the beat.

After about ten minutes, and on my fourth run through of the song, there had been no sign of cars and I was starting feel a little down on my luck. My feet hurt already and I had to start walking on the grass.

I needed to keep my spirits up. "Don't feel down, chicky. Just think, you're 10 minutes closer to the next car. That's all. Every morning when I wake up there's a halo glowing from the corner of my four-post bed... I know it's not mine, but I'll see if I can use it..."

I saw three more True Blood bottles as I walked. I told myself that it wasn't a big deal. I was actually pretty proud that I didn't even entertain the thought of picking them up. Somebody lost a trash bag with a 4-pack in it, and that was that. I had more important things on my mind.

A few hundred yards down, and halfway through the eighth run-through of the song, I saw the fifth one.

Now, I'm a believer in fate. It's one of my cuter qualities. So I started wondering if God or destiny or whatever was telling me that I NEEDED to pick up this bottle. Maybe it was a clue or something. Maybe whoever kidnapped, or drugged and possibly raped me, was someone I knew from one of my TB message boards and he was the one who had left it here. Maybe this was God trying to give me evidence.

I took a few cautious steps away from the road and stepped around a largish brown anthill. I moved closer to the bottle, its red glass shining in the moonlight was like a beacon. Then I saw that the words on the label were sort of shifting around.

To the credit of how insane this night was making me and what a dumb bitch I probably am, I have to admit what my first thought was. "Is this a magic bottle? Is a genie going to pop out if I clean it off?"

I got a little excited by that idea and leaned forward to look at it closer, when I realized it was not the label that was moving. The bottle was covered in ants.

I jumped back, nearly into the anthill, and then literally scampered to the relative safety of the shale road. The pebbles dug into my feet, but I was grateful for the sanctuary. I balanced on one leg then the other as I brushed off my soles.

Stupid fucking bottle... This was not a sign from God, this was just road trash. "But why are there so many? What am I going to find next? Is there going to be some Slusho cups out here covered in roaches? A Buzz Beer with spiders?"

I shivered a few times, but got myself under control relatively quickly for my standards and continued on with my hike. Before I could think more about the situation, I heard the thumping bass of a car stereo system again. Of course it was my luck that it was coming from behind me. I wondered if it was the same car from earlier, but I couldn't be sure. Then I decided I didn't even really care. It was a car and I needed help.

I ran as far into the middle of the road as I felt was safe, hiding behind my trusty makeshift bush. I waved my arms and screamed, "Help! Please stop!"

It was a truck, black I think? The music kept pounding closer and closer until I started to worry it was going to run me over. I moved over to the side and watched as it just went past without even slowing down.

Then I got pissed.

I shouted, "Fuck you! Karma will get you for this one!" as loud as I could, holding up my free hand's middle finger. I prayed that whoever was driving would get stranded naked in the woods and be lost like me, then had to watch as I just drove on fucking by. A small voice in the back of my head said that I would never do that, but I sure as hell wanted to.

I stared at it driving away when I saw the red brake lights come on. He pulled over! The bass music stopped, then the red lights turned off after that. I could sort of see the truck in the bright night, but it seemed pretty far away with the lights off.

Not caring about my feet at that point, I just started running. The pebbles dug in, but I ignored them. I had a hero! I was saved! Sure, it took swearing at them, but they had actually stopped for me! I took back all my evil prayers. I would apologize profusely for swearing and getting mad. In my head, I started planning the "Poor Me" speech. 'Please, Mister, I might've been raped. I need the cops. Please help me.'

As I got closer, I heard the beeping that meant one of the doors was open. The lights were on inside, too, but I hadn't seen anyone get out. I looked around and started shouting at the woods and vaguely in the vicinity of the truck.

"Hello? I don't know where you went, but, please! I swear I'm not crazy! I just need help! I'm sorry for flipping you off! If you could just call the cops for me, I'd really appreciate it! I think someone kidnapped me!"

When I reached the back of the truck, I could see that someone had left the driver's side door open a crack. I leaned against the gate and peeked into the truck bed, but I was disappointed to find that there was nothing there. No toolbox, no trash. It was pretty near spotless. No evidence that said what kind of person the driver was. Not so much as a can of Skoal or maybe even some dead bodies under a tarp.

Thinking about dead bodies was enough to send me down one of my paranoid trains of thought. My mind started throwing images at me. Maybe some crazy redneck would be crouched down in the driver's seat, pointing a shotgun at me. Or maybe there'd be a baby in a carseat, giggling, and then someone would come from behind me and strangle me with a garrote.

I congratulated myself mentally for remembering the word garrote, but I was stopped in my tracks and frozen with fear. What if this was the person who had brought me out here? What if I was walking right into a trap?

Out loud, I was just saying over and over again that I really needed help. But, mentally, I was trying to decide what to do. Another 50/50 decision. Check out the truck or run away. If I looked inside and tried to find whoever had been driving, there was a possibility that I'd get murdered. But my other option was that I could keep walking and hope for another car to show up.

Fuck that one. I was not going back to walking.

This was getting annoying. It probably wasn't a murderer, anyway. But fuck that guy for leaving his truck behind. I was gonna take it. Maybe if there was a cell phone inside or a CB radio or something, I could just take that.

Squaring my shoulders and gathering my bravery, I moved forward with the branch held up, ready to attack if I needed to. If anyone tried to kill me, they were at the very least going to get a stick in the eye. Good luck wearing an eye patch for the rest of your life, fucker.

Inside of the truck, there was no baby. No redneck with a shotgun. No one was in there at all. But, in the driver's seat, there was a large cardboard box about the size that my 20" TV had come in. On top of it, there was a manila envelope with one simple word on it. "MOLLY."

My mind exploded in incomprehension. If there was a little white thought bubble over my head, it would've simply said, "WTF!"

Then the logic of this situation was plain as day to me. Somebody was playing fucking mind games with me. I'm the motherfucking Most Dangerous Game. Somebody's setting me up with the means to defend myself, maybe a small hunting knife or something, and I was going to have a 15 minute head start to run for my fucking life.

I looked around again, but no one was there. I pushed the box along the bench seat of the truck and became frustrated when it only moved about 2 feet. I figured it had gotten caught on one of the seatbelts, but I didn't give a shit. It was enough room for me to squeeze in.

I closed and locked the doors, leaving my branch outside on the road. I checked the steering wheel column, only to discover that whoever had abandoned the vehicle didn't leave the keys in the ignition. "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

I started thrashing around in the seat, punching the steering wheel and having an overall tantrum. I nearly tore down the sun visor, hoping against hope that there'd be a spare set of keys hidden up there. There wasn't.

Without any other plans, I usually play life like a video game. You always need a weapon and there's always a way out. I checked the glove compartment, but it was empty except for the owner's manual. I looked under the seats and, again, there was nothing. Like its bed, the cab of the truck was remarkably clean and looked like it had been vacuumed recently. I did find a duffel bag on the other side of the box, which had been the thing keeping me from having more room on the bench.

I let my hands fall in my lap and glared at the envelope with my name on it. I glared at the box. I glared at the duffel bag. I glared with all my might. I didn't want to see what was left for me, but there were no other options of where to go from there. I wasn't getting out of the relative safety of the truck any time soon. There were no hidden items like a health pack anywhere. I was going to have to play this sick motherfucker's game.

I growled and ripped the top off of the envelope. "Fine, but I'm going to win. You don't know who you're fucking dealing with, asshole." This fucked up night was going to end as soon as possible. Either with my death or somebody else's. I wasn't going to drag it out any longer.

* * *

Author's Note: Feedback is a gift from the fangirl gods. It's also a great inspiration. Please, feed the monsters?


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: 7 Stages Of Acceptance (Denial, Hope, Anger, Bargaining, Denial Again, Shock, Acceptance)

As I opened the envelope, I had a passing thought that maybe a timer would start and I'd have 60 seconds to perform surgery on myself or a bear trap was going to close on my head. But nothing happened. There were only a couple of sheets of paper inside. I pulled out the stack and turned the truck's dome light on to read them.

The first page was a typed letter to me. It was short, but by far the most fucked up letter I had ever read. This even includes the time I found a note in my bra that had been left over from the first time I got drunk. It had simply said, "You ate out a girl last night. You weren't impressed." That cured my short foray into bisexuality in 2 seconds flat.

"Molly-

First of all, calm down. This is great news. You're in the True Blood universe.

Tonight is the night Sookie meets Bill, get going if you want to see it in time. The keys to the truck are in the box. Your IDs and car insurance cards won't hold up if a cop checks them, so obey the speed limits and be safe.

Also, Sam will give you the keys to your apartment. He's expecting Anna.

P.S. Burn this letter and the envelope. Just to be safe."

I stared at the letter and looked around to see if anyone was videotaping me. If this was a really ingenious twist to a candid camera show, I was NOT signing any release forms. And I was going to sue them for stripping me naked. I was almost positive that I could sue for that.

I remembered the True Blood bottles that I'd seen on the side of the road, and I admitted to myself that they COULD have been real. But this shit was too ridiculous for me to wrap my mind around. There was no way it was true. This kind of thing just didn't happen in real life.

My more optimistic side piped up at that moment. Hell, maybe this sort of thing happened all the time. How would I know? Maybe fangirls were always winding up in alternate universes based on their favorite TV shows. It's not like they could send a letter back. They'd be in an alternate fucking universe.

I shuffled the papers and the next thing was a Google Maps print-out of directions to Merlotte's from where I was. At the top of the paper were the typed words, "IF YOU RE HEADED NORTH, TURN AROUND. IF YOU'RE HEADED SOUTH, FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS."

I started to get really, really mad at this point. How could I be so stupid to even entertain the thought that this even MIGHT be true? Really? Directions to Merlotte's? Hardy har har. It just had to be a prank, either by somebody who was a real asshole, or maybe a wacky billionaire who liked torturing fangirls.

But maybe I was dead and this was heaven. Or I was in a coma and this was like Life On Mars. Or maybe I had a mental breakdown and I was in an asylum somewhere, pulling a Buffy like in "Normal Again."

When I boiled down all the possibilities, though, I was in a 50/50 decision again. Either this was real or it wasn't. It seemed like if I were insane or in a coma or dead, I might as well just enjoy it and fucking rock the shit out of Bon Temps. But on the other hand, it was WAY more likely that it wasn't real and that had worse repercussions. If it was a prank and I believed it was real, it'd probably just tear my fucking heart out.

I relaxed into the driver's seat of the truck, leaning the back of my head against the cushion behind it and releasing a long, deep breath. The rational decision was not to believe. But a stronger side of me was curious enough to play along. I decided to read through the rest of the papers that had been left for me.

There was an unsigned title to the truck and a hand-written bill of sale to Anna Paquin. I giggled for half a moment at the name. There were also two sheets of cardstock insurance cards, one that was in Anna Paquin's name and the other said Stephanie Moyer.

I emptied the envelope to make sure there was nothing else in it, and three Louisiana driver's licenses fell out. The IDs had three different names: Anna Paquin, Stephanie Moyer and Rutina Wesley. Each one had my picture on it, too, and it wasn't the same one as on my own license. My hair was down and I was smiling too hard. When had I ever taken a picture like that? I tried to look at the edges of my face to see if they had photoshop'd the background out, but I couldn't tell.

I bent and flexed the IDs under the light and they had holograms of the state of Louisiana on them. At this point, I just started getting impressed by the effort of whoever was behind this whole stunt. If this was a joke, the level of detail was amazing. I had to give them that, at least.

Getting more and more curious about my loot, I decided to check out what else was in store for me. I sat the papers by my feet on the floor of the truck and stared at the large cardboard box for only a second before opening it. The first thing I saw was a set of keys, an unopened pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights and a pair of black Bic lighters.

Now, maybe other people might not have been surprised at this, but I had to gasp. Whoever was behind this prank knew my brand of cigarettes and even went so far as to get my favorite color of lighters? I wondered if they knew I'd need at least two because I lost them all the time. Somewhere there was a land of individual socks and every lighter I'd ever had.

I placed the cigarettes on the floor with the papers and went through the rest of the stuff in the box. There was a bag of toiletries, including my brand of Sensodyne toothpaste with Extra Whitening. Underneath that were clothes, including underwear. A pack of HanesHerWays, bikini-cut, and two white and black bras. All in my size.

I started to feel more than a little paranoid that someone knew about my style of underwear. Someone had gone through my drawers? Hell, my own mother barely ever remembered that I only wore bras with underwire. And I could barely recall ever mentioning it in passing conversation, so how could someone else have? Did I fill out one of those online survey questionnaires with a little too much detail? That sounded like something I would do. I supposed you could find anything out on the internet, but the little optimistic voice in the back of my mind was getting louder.

I ripped open the pack of Hanes and slid a pair of black panties on, followed by the black bra. The first article of clothing was a maroon t-shirt with no logo on it, so I pulled that on, too. It fit well, if not a little loose. I usually bought them a size or so bigger because they always shrank in the wash, so I wasn't bothered too much by it.

I pushed past another shirt and found jeans that I attempted to put on, but it was too difficult while sitting in the truck. I decided to leave them unzipped until I got to wherever I was going.

There was another pair of jeans and some other clothes, but then I found a large, charcoal gray purse. I was pretty damn grateful of that. Even clothed, I felt naked without my purse. It was my style to keep a lot of shit with me, and a new purse was something I had needed for a while. I decided when this bullshit night was over, I was keeping it. Just see them try and take it from me. I'd fucking sue.

I thought of the scene from True Blood where Jason called Amy's purse a big bag of crazy and I laughed to myself. I was probably close to being as crazy as you could get, might as well have the bag to match.

I took most of the stuff from the toiletries bag, as well as the cigarettes and IDs, and threw them in my new purse. I took a hairclip from the bag and put my hair up so that it would stop tickling my neck. I'd need to brush it, but for now I just wanted my hair out of the way.

My mother, as well as my ex-boyfriends, had always preferred my hair down. But I felt more in control, like a business woman, with my hair clipped back. I was starting to feel more secure than I had been all night. Clothed, purse'd, hair pulled back. I felt like I was ready for anything. Especially a fight.

I decided I needed to make sure I had absolutely everything out of the box, so I emptied it on the bench and started going through all the clothes. There was a pretty, forest green, sundress. I shook it out on the seat and, once I was sure there was nothing hidden in it, I tossed the dress back in the box. There was one other pair of jeans, the other shirt, but that was about it. There were no other big shocking secrets or letters, but there was a nice pair of black sandals that fit me pretty damn well and three burner cell phones that had their phone numbers labeled on the back of them.

I held one of the cell phones in my hand for a minute, thinking how much I had wanted one only a few minutes ago. Calling the cops seemed like a moot point. What was I going to say? "Yes, Officer, I was kidnapped. But some very nice anonymous benefactor left me a truck and some fake IDs, so we'll call it a draw."

Who else could I call to ask for help? I thought of my mother and smacked myself in the forehead for not thinking of her sooner. She'd be worried and she'd be a lifeline to normalcy.

I quickly dialed her phone number and was surprised when it didn't connect... The automated voice said it was a non-working number and I was more stunned about that than anything else that had happened so far.

What. The. Fuck.

I gulped and stared at the phone in my hands, sitting quietly and not moving for the longest time since I could remember. It seemed that getting shocked over and over again was a cure for ADD.

It was just too impossible to imagine that my mom had shut off her service. She had had that phone number since I was in middle school. She was techno-illiterate and the idea of her memorizing a new 7 digit number was like asking a cat to learn Latin. It just wasn't going to work.

For the first time in the evening, I allowed myself to almost fully recognize that this situation could very well be really happening.

I gulped again and I felt actually scared. To my credit, I refrained from throwing another tantrum. The possibility of being raped wasn't as frightening as this was to me. I was living the dream, quite literally. I had wished for this for like the past 4 years of my life, on nearly every shooting star and every birthday cake. I had even planned that if I ever met a genie, this would be my first wish.

But, "Damn! What a waste of a wish! Stupid fucking magic! Where were you when I wasn't in my selfish phase and I was wishing for world peace? Or that my family lived forever and never had cancer? I'm a stupid, STUPID bitch! The wish that came true is that I'm now in Bon-fucking-Temps!"

I caught my eyes in the rear view mirror and saw how sad and confused they looked. I seemed so lost that I just wanted to hug myself.

But then I suddenly remembered the face of Macaulay Culkin, who had gone through a similar dilemma. I remembered my favorite scene of Home Alone and I instantly cheered up, grinning at myself in the mirror.

"I'm in Bon-fucking-Temps, MOTHERFUCKER!" Sure, my family was gone, but they could take care of themselves for a while. For right now, I was in TRUE BLOOD! There'd be time to miss my mom later.

I allowed myself to do a celebratory dance for as long as I wanted. I wiggled my butt in the seat and did the cabbage patch and the tootsie roll and even threw a little electric slide in there. Well, as good as you can do them while sitting in the seat of a car. I'd have done the Macarena but I was just a little too cool for that.

After a few minutes of dancing, I remembered that the letter said I needed to get going if I was going to see Bill and Sookie. I started the truck and was grateful that it was an automatic. I was going to be fucked if it had been a stick-shift. As soon as the key clicked the electricity on, I was instantly attacked by club-style music that was so loud it hurt my rib cage. Now that I was close enough to hear it, I realized it was Kanye West, Stronger. Still, the bass was annoying and I turned the volume down as quickly as I could.

When I moved to put the truck into drive, my arm brushed against the edge of the box and pissed me off. Stupid fucking box with its sharp edges. With my foot on the brake, I tried to push it down the bench with a good amount of force and recalled the duffel bag that was keeping me from having more room. Right, the duffel bag. I hadn't looked through it yet.

I put the truck back into park and pulled the bag over to me, while pushing the box onto the passenger side floor. It was remarkably heavier than I expected and packed full. I unzipped the duffel and inside of it were three spiral notebooks, a bag of cheap, erasable pens... and a fucking shitload of cash.

I started laughing maniacally again. Holy shit, I was rich! Well, not rich, exactly. I figured there was probably about $400 in ones. But there was also a wad of bills on the top that was in twenties and it was wrapped in a piece of paper that had the word "Sam" typed on it.

I forced myself to quickly check through the spiral notebooks before touching the money, but they were blank. I pushed them to the side and just ran my hands through the cash. I picked up a handful and lifted it to my face. I didn't even care that there wasn't that much money. It was glorious just to be holding onto a bag of fucking MONEY.

I sat and giggled madly at my loot for longer than I'd like to admit. What I wanted to do was roll around in it, stuff some in my bra in case someone tried to take it away. But, frankly, I was scared that if I questioned the situation or touched it too much, the spell would break. And I wasn't going to do SHIT that could possibly wake me up from this dream.

With shaking hands, I allowed myself to peel off about 5 of the twenties from the "Sam" wad and stuffed them in my purse. I pulled the truck back onto the road and turned the volume back up on the radio, ready to head off in style with some tunes. The CD had moved to the next song by now, but I wasn't really into Kanye that much, so I switched to the radio. There was some sort of commercial about Shreveport carpeting and I started losing it. Shreveport! I was really in Louisiana!

I forced myself to calm down and behave like a normal human being. I had shit to do, places to go. I remembered that I was supposed to head south, so I checked the dashboard for a compass. There was a small globe attached behind the steering wheel and I celebrated when I found it. Success was my middle fucking name! I leaned down and grabbed the papers from under my feet, thumbing through them for the map to Merlotte's. Apparently, I was on the 557, and the compass said north, so I'd need to turn around.

Making a shitty, 5-point, sort of U-turn, was pretty easy when there was no one around to make fun of you. It turned out I had been walking away from town, but that was no big deal. It had all worked out in the end. Actually, it was turning out to be a pretty good night. I began to list all of the good things that were happening to me. Firstly, I was successfully NOT raped. I patted myself on the back for that one. Secondly, I had clothes which I didn't have before. Way to go not being naked anymore, Molly.

Finally, I was in BON-FUCKING-TEMPS.

I rolled down the window and decided to let my optimistic side have control over my mouth. I shouted as loud as I could to the wind, "BON-FUCKING-TEMPS, MOTHERFUCKERS!"

No one was a happier girl than me. I'd never felt like this in my entire life and I wanted to believe that it was real. If it did turn out to be a prank, fuck it. I'd probably sign the release forms just because these jerks had given me this great high. I felt like I was a GOD. I had managed to pray hard enough to wish myself into a universe where vampires were real and I was going to rock the hell out of it.

I put the driver's side window almost all the way back up before leaning down and grabbed the cigarettes and lighter from my purse. I tapped the pack against my thigh as I maneuvered the steering wheel one-handed. A sign passed that said the speed limit was 35, so I let my foot ease off the accelerator. I had been driving close to 50. No speeding, that's Bon Temps rule number one.

I pulled a cigarette out and placed it between my lips. I let the pack fall between my legs, grabbed the lighter and lit my cig, then took a long drag.

The first cigarette out of the pack is an experience, especially menthol. I knew many people who hated menthol, but I loved it. It tasted so... minty. So natural. Like I was smoking the leaves off a tree. And the first cigarette was always, by far, the freshest tasting. I was celebrating my new world and I was excited.

I also had a little bit of a dizzy head rush, too. I wasn't a heavy smoker. Usually I threw out a pack of cigarettes for going bad rather than for finishing them. But I was a car smoker and I loved to have one on long drives on the way home from or going back to college.

I turned a corner and Merlotte's was right in front of me before I was even done with my cigarette. I stared at the restaurant and its glowing sign for a few seconds, then tried to reason out that maybe this was the set of the show. It was just too amazing to actually see it in real life. I wanted to take a picture. But then I just had an overwhelming urge to touch it and make sure it was real.

Planning to jump out of the truck and run right for it, I realized I had to get rid of my cigarette first. I almost threw it out the window from gut instinct, but then I remembered myself and put it out in the ashtray.

It wasn't that I was a big Earth-lover or anything. I just tried really hard not to litter. A few years back, there had been about a week in my life when I did coke with a good friend of mine. She had a connection and I had money. We wound up going to the beach and walked the shore, but all I could focus on was the litter there. People had carelessly thrown out plastic bags, beer bottles, cigarette butts, whatever they wanted. Like it was their own free trashcan. And I got pissed that assholes were ruining my good time. I wound up ranting about it for like 45 minutes straight, without her getting a word in edgewise. I never really did coke again, it was too addictive and too expensive, but the moral stayed with me to this day.

With my cigarette extinguished, I took the keys out of the ignition, threw them in my purse and eagerly opened the door of the truck to exit, but my feminine common sense or low self-esteem or whatever kicked in. I turned the dome light on to check myself in the rear view mirror to see how I looked, and it wasn't great. My hair was sticking up in all sorts of directions. But the first thing I noticed was that I was a brunette.

It's embarrassing to say that this was the moment when I truly let go of any hope/fear that this was a prank. Not when my mom's cell phone didn't work, not the bag of cash, not the Louisiana radio stations, not waking up in the woods naked, but the fact that I had brown hair. I had been dying it red since sophomore year of high school and hadn't seen myself as a brunette in nearly 10 years. There was no way someone dyed it either, I was sure of that. It was the mousy brown that I had had when I was a kid and it felt different. Natural, as if it had never been fried by over-dying.

It was like I had been reborn. I immediately checked my bicep and saw that the tattoo I had gotten for my 18th birthday was gone. The burn scar on my wrist from a moment of wanting fresh baked cookies too soon, gone.

I looked in the mirror closely for any other changes in my face, but I was still me. I didn't look any younger than 26. I had hoped that maybe I wouldn't have freckles or I'd have less of them like Jodie from Bloodsucking Fiends, but everything was still there. I tugged down the hip of my jeans and I still had my birthmark. I was mostly the same.

I shrugged and put on a little foundation, mascara and lipstick from the toiletries bag in my purse. They were my brands, but I had more than stopped questioning the magic or luck or whatever had given the oddly-specific items to me. I used the hairbrush to smooth out my hair before clipping it back up. Then I realized that I wanted to be at my prettiest for this, so I let my hair fall back down. It would be a bother, but fuck if I wasn't going to use all the effort I could manage to look a little bit nicer.

I hopped out of the truck and onto the dirt floor of the parking lot. I zipped and buttoned up my jeans as I stood there for a moment, soaking in the smell of the trees and the restaurant. There was the smell of old beer and fried food. My stomach growled. I didn't know how long it had been since I ate, but I was looking forward to the prospect of a Lafayette burger. This was going to be awesome.

I went to lock the door of the truck and realized that it didn't have one of those automatic locks on the keychain. Call me lazy, but I was used to that. Locking the door with my key didn't seem really safe. If anything, it made me especially paranoid about leaving all that cash in the duffel sitting there. I walked around to the passenger side. The duffel was right there, a broken window away from me being penniless. I pulled the box off the floor and pushed the duffel under the bench seat as well as I could. Just to be doubly safe, I put the box of clothes back on the floor in front of it.

Feeling a little safer, I locked the doors of the truck, double-checked that they were truly locked, and then squared my shoulders as I set off towards Merlotte's.

* * *

Author's Note: Feedback is a gift from the fangirl gods. It's also a great inspiration. Please, feed the monsters?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: If It Kills You To Smile, Then You'll Die Happy

As I got closer to Merlotte's, my steps got slower. I was suddenly getting stage fright at the idea of being in Bon Temps, in front of so many strangers, with nothing and no one to lean on. I couldn't handle it. My anxiety was making me panic and all I wanted to do was run away and puke.

I was close enough to the front doors that I could hear a lot of people inside. There was music, talking, laughing... everyone seemed happy. But I didn't want to join them. I wanted to hide. I just knew that something was going to go wrong.

A car door slammed in the parking lot behind me, and I jumped about 5 feet in the air. That's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. It scared the ever-living crap out of me and I leaned against the railing of the porch as I laughed at how frightened I was.

What was I doing? I was Molly Meyers, would-be-slayer of rapists, defeater of assholes and overall superhero. My anxiety issues were not going to get the best of me, for God's sakes. I wasn't going to fuck this up. I just needed to stop thinking so much and go in. Rip it off like a band aid and not even cry about it. Over the teeth, past the gums.

I took a breath, closed my eyes, and opened both doors at once, rather dramatically. The sounds got louder and I peeked one eye open. The first thing I saw was the bar. And Sam fucking Trammell.

Let me say that again. SAM TRAMMELL was standing less than like 10 feet away from me. Maybe it was 20 feet. I don't know. It REALLY was not the time to think about my shitty depth perception.

I stood there for a few moments, dumbfounded, probably with my jaw sitting on the floor, until someone cleared their throat. I realized that there were people at a table staring at me for still holding the doors open. Feeling a little bit like an asshole, I stepped forward and let them close behind me.

Looking back at Sam and watching him talk on the phone, in all his flannel glory, my eyes began to water a little and I suddenly became aware how long it had been since I'd blinked. I wiped the moisture away while he walked towards the end of the bar and that's when I saw the only thing that could've trumped seeing Sam. He was handing the phone to Anna PAQUIN.

A crazy giggle began to bubble up out of me and I literally had to put my hand over my mouth to shut it off before it started. I needed to calm down. Yes, Anna Paquin's right there. I understand that this shit's insane, Molly. Now, RELAX.

Carrie Preston passed by me with a tray full of food on her hands. She was yelling at Sam behind her. "Please, Sam! I have kids!"

I gaped as Arlene went by, not only impressed to see another True Blood actor but also jealous of her red hair. I swore to myself I'd get a box of dye the first chance I had. Maybe I could ask her what she used, because that was the exact color I had always been striving to achieve.

I was turning back to the bar when I noticed a tall brunette in black short-shorts, the kind that I would never have been able to wear, standing next to me. I realized that it was Dawn. She wasn't dead yet. And she was talking to me.

I had no idea what she was saying, though. It all sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher's trombone voice and I suddenly couldn't understand English. Everything was happening so fast. All I knew that Dawn was talking to me and expecting me to answer.

My God, she wanted me to interact with her. She thought I was a character in this crazy farce and I was supposed to play along. I screamed inside my head, "Oh, no! Improv theater! I'm shit at improv! Please! Script! Line!" But I willed myself to loosen up and do what I'd normally do. It shouldn't be too hard. It was just like lying.

Except that I was REALLY bad at lying. I just wished I had stayed in the truck and thought of a plan before I came in here. But how was I supposed to plan for shock? You don't plan for shock, it just fucks you up.

Dawn rested her tray on her hip and flipped her hair over her shoulder and repeated herself. She spoke slowly to me as if I were hard of hearing or stupid, I wasn't sure which. Probably both. "DO- YOU- WANT- TO- SIT- AT- THE- BAR- OR- DO- YOU- WANT- TO- EAT- AT- A- TABLE?"

Right. Sensible question. Now she expects a sensible answer. I shouldn't have smoked that cigarette. I felt like I had electricity under my skin and I was going to throw up at any second.

I smiled as best I could and moved my mouth as I forced words out. "I'm sorry. My mind was somewhere else. Yes, I'd like to sit at a table." What a great answer, Molly! You almost seem like you aren't mentally handicapped! Well done!

Dawn grabbed a menu and was about to walk away, when she second thought herself and turned back to me. "Is it just you tonight, honey?"

More questions? What is this, a fucking pop quiz? Did it look like there was anyone else with me, bitch? My mouth felt dry. I wondered if my hands were shaking. I needed an answer!

Okay, think, Molly. Think, damn you. Was I expecting someone else? No! No, I was alone! That's an answer!

I shook my head at her and said, "It's just me. I'm eating alone. I'm an alone person. One of those people who is by themselves. That."

Dawn stared at me for a second, then seemed to realize that I was insane. Or drunk. Either way, she walked off towards the tables and booths, and I followed her as well as I could while stumbling over obstacles like my feet. It was difficult to walk while I tried to keep staring behind me toward the more major characters at the bar. I thought I'd seen Lafayette in the kitchen, but it was such a passing glance that I couldn't be sure.

When I hit a chair with my knee, hard, I began rubbing it to get the pain to go away and I recognized Dawn was standing next to a table. I wondered to myself if she had asked me another question, then I understood that she was waiting for me to sit down. Right. I'm a customer. I almost said that out loud, but I managed to reign in the crazy enough to keep my cover of semi-normalcy under control.

Taking a seat quickly, I looked over the menu that she had handed me. There weren't a lot of items on it. Hell, the beer list was longer. Some of the food items had been whited out and were hand-written to change the ingredients. There were so many details to soak in. This would be a great souvenir. Would someone notice if I stole it?

I fidgeted in the seat and remembered why I always preferred a booth. Chairs forced me to have better posture than I actually had. I was about to ask to change seats to one of the two empty booths when a couple walked past my eye line towards one of them. It was the Rattrays and I had to stifle a gasp at the prospect.

The fucking Rattrays!

Dawn was staring at them, too, then remembered me and asked, "Do you know what you want to drink?"

I gulped at the prospect of answering another question. What DID I want to drink? Coke? Dr. Pepper? No, not fucking Dr. Pepper, dumbass. Why would you order a Dr. Pepper, Molly? Lying doesn't mean do the opposite of what you want to do. Who even thought of Dr. Pepper? Yeah, that's what perfectly good cola needed, the taste of pepper.

I managed to snap myself out of my mental rant and went with a simple answer, "Coke?" Dawn nodded before quickly walking away to the bar where Anna was standing.

Right, not Anna. Sookie Stackhouse. I was Anna. Fuck, this was going to be hard. I wished the IDs had just been under my own name so it'd be easier to remember. I was Shakira, right?

I went back to observing the Rattrays and saw Mac smack Denise on the ass, which she was none too happy about, and then follow her into one side of the booth. When they sat down, I could only see the back of their heads, but I didn't care since they were only supporting actors for all of two episodes. I wanted to gawk at the leads.

I turned to look back at the bar, but, instead of spotting Sam, my vision was blocked by Sookie walking towards me. The panic came back at full blast when I thought of her reading my thoughts. I had to focus on something else before she got too close. Anything but True Blood.

I quickly scanned the walls of the bar and started staring at one of the glowing Dos Equis signs on the wall. I thought about those commercials about the "most interesting man in the world." I tried to think of who the guy reminded me of, and then I realized he looked like a Spanish Alex Trebek. A Spanish Alex Trebek who was getting a lot of poonani. I giggled at the word poonani in my head. I decided that was a funny word and started listing slang terms for vagina. Pussy. Twat. Cunt. Cooch. Cooter. Beaver. Pink taco. Box.

By the time I couldn't think of any more, Sookie had reached the Rattrays' table without so much as a glance at me. I let out a huge sigh of relief and went back to people-watching as she took their order. The restaurant was louder than I expected and I could barely hear anyone specifically say anything, but I didn't need to hear the dialogue. I had watched the pilot so many times that I had at least this much memorized.

My stomach growled again to remind me of my hunger, so I snapped the menu open quickly to find the burger that I wanted. There was a Merlotte's Burger, but the word Merlotte's had been crossed out and the word "Lafayette" was written right above it.

I was pretty sure that if I died that night with a Lafayette burger in my stomach, it'd all be worth it.

Dawn came over and sat the Coke in front of me with a straw. My mouth was so dry that I took a big gulp before I even bothered to tap the straw out of its wrapper. She pulled out a little pad of paper from her apron pocket and seemed ready to write down my order. "Did you decide what you want, or do you need a little more time?"

I was ready for this quiz question, so I able to smile at her genuinely. "I'll have a Lafayette Burger, please."

"Rare, medium or well-done?"

Fuck! I hadn't seen that one coming. Options on a burger? When was the last time I had gone somewhere that asked about options for a burger? McDonald's only did it the one way, for God's sakes. And when my stepdad cooked on the barbecue, you always just ate what you got.

I had no idea how to answer her. Usually I liked steaks rare, but did it work that way for burgers? Goddamn it, I just came from an alternate universe! I was not in the frame of mind to make ANY decisions and this one wasn't even as easy as a 50/50. Could I phone a friend?

As a self-defense mechanism, I attempted to babble my way out of the question. "Um, is there a usual way? I could really use some help with this one. I ll take whatever you think is best. I'm starving, though, so it's not like I'm planning on letting it leave this table no matter how he makes it."

She laughed a little at that and wrote something down, leaving me to my own devices. I was pretty chuffed at having successfully not passed out due to all the stress.

All this pressure was really taking its toll on me and I downed the rest of my soda quickly in an attempt to ease my frazzled nerves. I sat the empty cup on the edge of the table and went back to trying to blend in and just be an audience member in Merlotte's. I couldn't help but notice every detail of the bar and its customers. There were a LOT of ugly people and beer signs.

Eventually, I got bored with the little details and spent a good amount of my time watching Sam as he spent most of his time staring at Sookie. For a guy who was mooning over a girl that wasn't me, he still seemed utterly gorgeous and so manly. He was a full on grown-up, running his own business and fitting so nicely in those tight jeans... Complete eye candy.

Dawn showed up with a refill on my coke and my burger within about 10 minutes. "Now, if it's too rare, I can take it back and heat it up for ya."

I already had taken a huge bite of the sandwich before she'd even finished her sentence. I swallowed it and took a sip of Coke before answering, "No way, it's great. Thanks very much."

In fact, I would like to say that it was the best burger I ever had, but I ate it so fast that I barely tasted it. I usually didn't like the works on my hamburgers, but I ate the onions and lettuce, too. Even the pickle that came with my fries. Hunger does wonders for a picky-eater.

Setting my empty plate to the edge of the table, I moved to another chair so that I could see the bar and the front door better. I knew Bill would be in any moment. I tried to remember if Mac was supposed to finish his pitcher first. It was half-empty already, so I figured it couldn't be too long a wait. I started to berate myself for eating so quickly. What excuse was I going to have to hang around for a while?

When Dawn came over to pick up the empty dish, I ordered a basket of chicken strips so that I didn't just look like I was table-sitting. I sipped on my coke and kept one eye on Sookie and one on Sam's ass until Rutina Wesley walked in, pissed as hell. Tara. Whatever.

I was pretty psyched to see her in real life, but she wasn't one of my most favorite characters so I was able to keep the dumb grin on my face to a minimum. Sookie joined her at the bar and they talked for a while until Tara seemed to cheer up a little.

Eventually, I realized I needed to do something to look sort of busy. I started tearing up the paper wrapper that my straw had come in. My stepsister had taught me a trick once where you could turn it into a moving spider, so I ripped it into fourths and began the monotonous task of twisting it as much as I could.

I was doing my best not to be obvious, so I only looked up at Tara and Sookie every once in a while. I debated moving to the bar and ordering a beer so that I could hear their conversation, but I knew that I had a good seat for what was going to happen soon. I wasn't about to give it up just to hear Tara swear like a sailor.

Eventually, people started leaving Merlotte's. I figured that had been the dinner rush. There was a lot less noise when the families left and it appeared to be that the drinking crowd was just who was still hanging around. The clock said it was almost 10:30 and I'd been there for about an hour. I wondered if Dawn was pissed. My chicken strips had gotten pretty cold and I'd hardly touched them.

Finished with my spider, I took a strawful of Coke and let a drop fall onto the body of my paper insect. The liquid spread and the legs started unraveling themselves from the twists I'd put in them. I smiled as the spider seemed to crawl, but then it was just a soggy mess.

I barely had a moment to think, "Damn. Now what?" when Bill arrived. It all happened so fast, but I just kinda did my best not to throw up. Or drool. I basically focused on keeping my mouth shut.

He walked past me my table to go to a booth and, I swear, it was just like the theme song: when he walked in, the air went out. Out of the room, out of my lungs, that air was fucking GONE. I knew it was corny as hell to be thinking that. After all, I'd hated when Charlaine Harris mentioned the song in Dead in the Family. But, at that moment, I decided to forgive her. I figured if I couldn't help thinking about the theme song, how could she?

I put the straw back in my Coke and took a few big swallows to get myself under control and, with a cooler mind, I realized that I was kind of disappointed at how different he looked in real life. I mean, compared to my swoon-worthy memories of him from the show. He seemed... shorter? Less like a major character, at least. His hair was greasy and kinda just hung over his forehead, like the heat was getting to him. And maybe it was, because his shirt was unbuttoned to ridiculous levels... Or he was just really proud of that chest hair.

Overall, though, he sort of just seemed like a sad guy. He had the face of someone who had just crawled out of a grave and was disappointed to be alive. I figured that was a pretty apt summation of his character so I shrugged, but the whole vibe was depressing enough that it took a lot of awesomeness out of the situation.

After the slight setback in my anticipations, I bounced back when he sat down in the booth and looked up towards the bar. His jaw tightened a little and his cheeks sunk in. He didn't have the appearance of anyone else I'd seen in my life. He was so pale. Not just European pale like me, but dead pale. If Stephen Moyer were dead, this was what it would look like.

And then it hit me that, holy shit, he really WAS dead. He was a fucking VAMPIRE. Not an actor, but a REAL vampire. The kind that lived by drinking human blood. The kind that was immortal. And he was like 10 feet away from me. I could've poked him if I had a little less self-control.

I looked to see what his eyes were focused on, and saw that he was staring Sookie, who was just standing there across the room and staring back at him. I started looking around, wondering if anyone else was seeing what was happening. I mean, they were like kids at a middle school dance. I expected the scene to change from a restaurant to the hillside from the Sound Of Music. At any moment, they would run from opposite sides of the restaurant and into each other's arms.

I noticed that Sam and Tara were watching at the couple as well, and it was a plain awkward moment for everyone who wasn't directly involved. But the whole thing was super sweet. It felt like hours were passing and no one was moving or breathing.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Sookie quickly turned back around to the bar and Bill re-focused his gaze on the table top. My muscles relaxed all at once and I collapsed into my chair, forgetting my forced posture. Once again, I felt like, if I were struck by lightning and died at this moment, it would all have been worth it. I had seen them meet!

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Author's Note: Comments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: 1 Bed/1 Bath, Hot Landlord Included

I watched with rapt attention as Sookie practically skipped over to Bill and took his order. She seemed nearly at giggles about the whole situation and I echoed her feelings. Man, I always liked her character, but at this moment I felt a deep bond with her. She was seeing her first vampire at the same time I was.

When Bill spoke, I almost squealed with delight. His accent was just so damn smooth. He might've looked a little messy and greasy, but he held himself stiffly and seemed to exude southern elegance. It was all so Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice. When he smiled at Sookie, and I melted inside, Bill was the leading man that I knew and loved again.

At this point, I didn't care who saw me. I put my chin in my hands and plain-out gawked at the scene unfolding in front of me. It was amazing to see. Live-action True Blood. How weird would it be if I asked for his autograph?

To my disappointment, the fucking Rattrays butted in and started talking to him, forcing Sookie to leave and get Bill his glass of wine. As they moved into his booth, I thought I saw Bill's eyes turn to me when he got up to let Denise sit down, so I quickly turned my face to the ceiling as if I were day-dreaming. I nearly whistled, as if to say, "La la la, not staring at you. Just innocently whistling and checking out this amazing tile work." If I was going to be here for a while, I needed to get one of those newspapers with eye holes cut out or something. I was just not good at going incognito.

When I glanced back at Bill to see if he was still looking at me, he was deep in conversation with the Rattrays and had most of his attention split between them and Sookie. I started to doubt that he'd even turned my way. But, fuck it. If he had seen me staring, at least he had enough manners not to call me out on it.

The Rattrays sat and talked with him for a longer time than I had seen on the show. Sookie came back for a moment with his wine and smiled, but left right afterwards. I wanted to scream in my mind to her that they were drainers, but I figured it would cause more problems than it would solve. Besides, I knew she'd take care of the situation soon enough.

But the longer the Rattrays sat with Bill, the more I started getting nervous about the upcoming events. I managed to keep my composure as I worried about the pain that Bill was going to go through. How much did it hurt for vampires to be touched by silver? It seemed like it burned a lot, but did vampires have a higher threshold for pain along with their quicker ability to heal? Did it really hurt or was it more of a force field kind of thing?

I kept waiting for Sookie to come back, but she stayed with Tara at the bar and watched them with about the same amount of disdain as I had. It seemed to take forever, or at least until Denise Rattray was nearly climbing into Bill's lap, for her to finally come to her senses and half-jog across the room.

After asking the table if they wanted anything, Sookie stood there for a long while without saying a word. She just looked at the group, and Bill stared at her curiously for a few endless, silent moments. He glanced back and forth between Sookie and the Rattrays and I knew that I was echoing his thoughts in my head. She was reading their minds. This is what it looked like when Sookie read minds.

Awkward.

No wonder people thought she was retarded.

Sookie offered them a free round of beer and then hurried towards the kitchen, but the Rattrays got up and walked out with Bill as soon as she went around the corner. I wanted so badly to follow them that I stood up suddenly at my table and nearly knocked my chair back. I figured that maybe I could follow at a discreet distance and watch all the action from the woods.

Luckily, my common sense stopped me before I had even taken a step. Firstly, I hadn't paid my bill. It was not gonna look like I was going off to watch the drainers attack Bill. It was going to look like I was dining and dashing. My second thought was so smart that I wished it had been the first one: it was going to be too crowded for me to play audience in the woods with Sam running around in dog-form. I was pretty sure that he, and probably Bill, would smell me out there, no matter how well I was hidden.

Sookie came running out of the back, saw that Bill's table was empty, then ran out the front doors. Sam threw an apron in Tara's hands and took off out the back. I stared at both exits, standing up next to my table and holding my purse in my hands, before deciding for sure that going out was not a good idea.

I forced myself to sit back down and, when Dawn walked by, I told her I was ready for the check. She looked grateful and annoyed, but, to her credit, all she said was, "Sure thing."

I only had ordered about $12 worth of food, so I left her a twenty. I figured it was tip enough for table-sitting for almost an hour and a half. I was almost out the door when I remembered that I had nowhere to go. Right, I was supposed to ask Sam for an apartment.

But Sam was outside, licking Sookie.

I decided to take an empty seat at the bar and wait, when Tara walked over to me. "What do you want?"

I didn't know how willing I was to spend more of my limited funds. Besides, I really didn't want to get drunk and drinking one beer seemed like a waste. "I'm sorry, I just need to talk to Sam."

"Well, he ain't here. You gonna drink something while you wait?"

"Uh..." Drink or don't drink... make a choice, Molly!

Luckily, Tara rolled her eyes at me and, with a "Whatever," moved on to refilling a beer for another customer before I could come up with an answer. With a little more time to think and the pressure off, I figured, if she came back, I'd get something from the tap so I didn't look like an asshole.

While I waited, I drummed my fingers along the top of the take-out container of chicken strips and looked at the pictures behind the bar. I didn't recognize a lot of the people, but there were some cute ones of the major characters.

The calendar caught my eye and I noticed that it was still June here, but in 2008. I shook my head and tried not to focus on how weird that was. Should I invest in something that was going to get popular soon? iPads? Jeggings? Would the same teams win the Super Bowl here as they did in my universe?

It was a bit of a moral quandary. I mean, Back to the Future seemed strongly against using my knowledge of the future for monetary gain, as evidenced by the Sports Almanac fiasco. But then Marty did seem to benefit from changing the future just enough to get himself a truck and his father a book deal. But, hell, I already got a pretty sweet, and free, truck for myself. Did I need to get greedy?

Maybe it was a moot point anyways, since I couldn't even remember who had won the last Super Bowl, let alone the one in 2009. I felt like the Packers had done well at some point or was that the Patriots? Pittsburgh, maybe? Shit.

I was still trying to recall the winner of ANY sporting event when Sookie came in from the back with a huge grin on her face. Sam followed her shortly after. I was about to get up to talk to him, when Tara shouted that someone was looking for him and pointed at me, about an inch away from my nose.

I was put on the spot. But, with a little experience under my belt, I felt calmer than I had started out. Maybe I had fried out all my nerves or something, but I was confident that I could handle this. I hopped down off the bar stool and held my hand out to Sam. "Hi, Sam Merlotte? I'm Anna Paquin." Don't giggle, I told myself. Do NOT giggle at your name.

He shook my hand and I got goose bumps all over again. It was my first physical contact with anyone since I arrived in Bon Temps, and it felt like sparks were shooting up my arm and down my spine. Like he had a joy buzzer in his hand or something.

"Paquin...? He thought for a moment, then ran his hand through his hair as he watched Sookie talking to Tara. He didn't seem to be in a good mood and I wished I had a rock to crawl under.

I frowned and shoved my hands in my pockets. "I'm here for a rental?"

"Oh! Yeah, of course! Your aunt called yesterday." Aunt? I figured that meant my mysterious benefactor was a woman. Whatever. Sam checked the clock behind the bar and saw it was near to 11. "It's a little late, isn t it?"

I blushed as Sam stared me directly in the eyes and talked to me like he was a normal person. I kept staring at his bushy, brown hair and played with my own absent-mindedly. I was nervous and love-struck, but I knew I could handle a one-on-one conversation with him better than anyone else.

"Yeah, I'm real sorry about that. I'd been on the road a while and I was just starving. Is it too late to deal with now? I can come back in the morning?" I really didn't have any place to go, but sleeping in the truck didn't seem like a high price to pay to stay on Sam's good side.

He glanced back towards Sookie again, then turned back to me with a forced smile on his face. "Nah, it's alright with me if you want to get it out the way now."

I grinned and tucked my hair behind my ears, hopefully out of the way. It really was bothering me to have it down. "Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it."

Sam started walking around the bar. "Listen, I'll go grab the keys from my office, then I'll show you the trailer, alright?"

"Yeah, sure, sounds great."

Before Sam went to his office, he bent over the bar towards Tara. "You good here for a while longer?"

"God, Sam. This ain't brain surgery. I got it." She was pouring a shot for Jane Bodehouse and one for herself as he disappeared into the back. Bartending really was a good job for her and I found myself smiling at the homeyness of her situation, before frowning at the insanity of mine.

I felt incredibly awkward just standing there. Should I sit back down? Do I keep standing to wait for him? I figured I'd just stand. He'd be right back. But I had no idea what to do with my hands! I was freaking out. I tried to look casual, holding my hands together behind my back for a half second, but came to the idea that that looked stupid. I tried sitting them on my hips, but that felt even more ridiculous. I settled on resting one on my purse and hooking the loop of my jeans with the other.

After a few minutes, Sam came out from the back hallway and said, "My jeep's parked out back. You want to follow me in your car?"

I nodded dumbly. "I don't really know the area super well. I barely found this place with good directions."

"Don't worry, there's only about four major roads in town. Once you figure them out, you'll do just fine." When he turned his smile on at me, I was almost positive that my pupils had changed into the shape of hearts. "Wait for me in the parking lot and then you can follow me to the trailers, alright?"

"Okie, thanks."

After I left the restaurant, I was confused for a moment when I couldn't recall which truck was mine. I was pretty sure I parked near a white van, but that was gone now. I had only owned this truck for like 3 hours, how the hell was I supposed to pick it out of a lineup?

On my second try of looking into cabs, I found the right one that had my stuff in it. I was relieved when I checked under the seat and saw that the duffel bag was still there and looked untouched. Closing the door, I decided to wait by the gate until I saw Sam's jeep pull out from behind the restaurant. When he beeped his horn, I jumped in the truck and followed him out down the same road I had driven in on.

We took a few turns here and there, but Sam's trailers were barely a mile or two away. He parked on the road in front of a double-wide that had two sets of front doors and a carport on either side. I was about to pull in behind him, but he got out and waved at me to park my truck in the driveway.

I turned the engine off, grabbed my purse and checked myself in the mirror. Still okay looking. I was about to get out when the car door opened for me. Sam was on the other side, holding it open, and I was moved by what a gentleman he was being.

"It's a one bedroom, one bath. Rent's $300 a month plus utilities."

"Um, okay." I took the little bit of a leap out of the driver's seat and onto the concrete of the driveway, and let him close my door behind me.

I didn't really know where he wanted to show me first, so I stood there with my hands in my pockets until he took the lead. He had to walk around me in the narrow alley between the truck and the trailer to get back to the front door, so he got awful close as he passed me. I wanted to brush against him accidentally, but I was never super great at being that kind of girl. I was aggressive, nobody could deny that, but I was always too nervous with guys to be a good flirter. So I pressed myself against the door of my truck and gave him as much room as I could as he went by.

Sam walked up the steps and opened the screen door, then unlocked the front door. Neither of us had said anything for a few seconds, and silence always made me feel uncomfortable, so I started throwing out things that my mom asked when she helped me get apartments before. "Are the walls awfully thin with the next door neighbors so close?"

He chuckled and held the screen door open for me. I climbed the stairs and took it from him as he went in the house. "You planning on being loud?"

I blushed at that and looked anywhere but him, standing in the doorway as he went around turning on lights. "No, no, I was just wondering. I mean, sometimes I stay up late watching TV, though, so I don't want to be bothering anybody."

It wasn't until he went into the kitchen that I felt confident enough to enter the living room. My personal bubble was larger than some states. "Oh, nah, don't worry about that, then. I put these up myself. I'm sure if you yelled loud enough he'd hear ya, but you should have your privacy."

I started having crazy fantasies about Sam being the one who was my neighbor. Maybe it would've been like when Marcia and Greg Brady moved into the attic together. Maybe I could've even drilled a hole in the wall and seen him changing. But, no, that seemed a little too Norman Bates for even MY fantasies.

I checked out the living room as Sam pulled the fridge away from the wall to plug it in. There was a faded yellow couch, a 70s-style coffee table, and an ancient TV set. It still had antennae. Right, it wasn't 2012. I couldn't remember when TVs changed over to digital broadcasting, but I figured I might be lucky enough to still get some of my shows that were on the basic channels. Or would they all be reruns for me? Maybe there would be some new series that were inspired by the Great Revelation! With vampire actors!

Sam caught me staring at the TV and said, "That's an oldie but it still works like a champ. If you want to get on the cable, I can get you a box for another twenty a month, but it probably wouldn't be here for a week or so."

"Twenty dollars ain't bad at all." I wondered if it came with HBO... Would it even exist in this universe, or would that create some sort of time loop? An HBO show with its characters watching HBO? Too weird. But I guessed it would be stranger if Jason Stackhouse watched Showtime.

Sam pushed the fridge back into place, and then began pointing out all the appliances. "I just got the fridge and microwave about 2 years ago, so they shouldn't cause you any trouble. You got your dishwasher down here..." He moved over towards the sink area and opened the door of the dishwasher, then closed it again. "Gas stove and oven... The washer and dryer are down the hall here." He walked out of the kitchen and down a narrow hallway before opening up a door into a little laundry room. It looked like it might've been a closet at one point, but now it was a cozy little nook with a vertical washer and dryer setup. An ironing board was hung on the wall. "These are only about a year old, but, if anything breaks down on you, let me know and I'll come on over and check it out as soon as I can."

God, he was like the epitome of manliness. He could fix things, he opened doors, he was friendly with strangers. In my past life, I'd been more of a Bill!Girl, but I was definitely turning into more of a Sam groupie with every second I was in his company. As he moved towards the back of the house, I forced myself to listen to what he was saying and not just stare at his ass in those tight Levi's.

There were two other doors down the hallway. The one immediately after the laundry room was a bathroom. When Sam opened the door, I was more than grateful to see that it had a bathtub. My grandparents had converted a mobile home into a stationary one and they just had a large shower. Staying with them for a summer had been a pain because of it, as it was nearly impossible to shave my legs.

Sam pulled back the curtain on the bath and I watched from the hallway as he showed me how to work the shower. I didn't really get it, but I was just glad that the tub looked relatively clean. I'd figure the shower out later. If I couldn't, I'd take a nice, long bubble bath, which sounded really, really good. "There's no hot water right now, but I can have it turned on for you by tomorrow afternoon."

The water. Would I need to sign up for that? I was almost positive that Anna Paquin didn't have a social security number. I started to panic and bit my thumbnail. "Is the water with the lot or do I need to call the company or something? And the power?"

He sat on the edge of the tub, wiping his hands dry on his jeans. "You can pay the electricity and water through me, but if you want to get on the city water that's up to you. Mostly all the places here run off the well. Might get expensive though to get it hooked up, though."

"Okay, sure. Well water shouldn't be a problem." Hell, it seemed like a gift from God at that moment, and I had no plans of contacting the city any time soon.

"It's pretty clean. And cheap." He seemed a little embarrassed about it, but I wasn't going to let him feel that way over little old me. He was doing me a great favor by having a place I could live at without an SSN.

"No, no, I lived off well water back home. I don't think it's gonna be a problem at all." Unless it stank like shit and came out yellow, but I'd jump off that bridge when I came to it.

He seemed satisfied with my answer, and we moved onto the bedroom. The first thing I noticed when we walked in was the queen-sized brass bed.

When my mother first started dating, she had one just like it. It squeaked like hell and haunted my dreams. I mean, sure, she might not have been having sex on it. The thing did make a noise whenever you breathed too hard in the same room. But late at night, every creak inspired images of killing whichever guy she was dating at the time. To this day, I still woke up once in a while in a cold sweat, screaming, "GET OFF MY MOM!"

I went into the middle of the room as Sam was saying that his friend, Terry, had made the nightstands himself. I pushed on the bed with all my might and I sighed in relief when it didn't make a sound. He must've oiled it or something.

Sam laughed a little at me, then asked, "Are you testing the shocks in that thing?"

I blushed and walked back to the doorway next to him. "Sorry, I was just wondering if it squeaked. I had a bed like this before." He just nodded like he understood.

I took a better look at the whole room. There was a large window along the left wall, with some Southern-style, white, lacy curtains. I wondered if these came for free with every trailer, because I felt like I'd seen them a million times before. The obligatory painting of a wheat field hung above the bed, with a large tree in its background. It was tacky and reminded me of something my grandmother would've LOVED. I figured I'd get rid of it as soon as I could.

Suddenly remembering Sam'd said something about Terry Bellefleur making the nightstands, I moved closer to check them out. They were simple, painted white, but looked store-bought and really cute. "Those nightstands are pretty impressive for handmade."

He smiled at me and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "I'll tell him you said so. So do you think you'll take the place?"

Why wouldn't I? It was pretty cheap rent, furnished, and I wasn t going to find a better place with my identity issues. Plus it kept me close to Merlotte's and the True Blood action. This was the next best thing to living at Sookie's house. "Absolutely. It's great."

"Great," he repeated. He pulled out some papers from his back pocket. "I'm just gonna need you to fill out this lease. And $800."

I was unnerved by the whole idea of forms, but even more scared of the money he'd asked for. "Eight HUNDRED?"

He reached in his shirt pocket for a pen as he unfolded the papers. "First and last month's rent, and $200 security deposit. I told your aunt."

Of course, my fucking mystery aunt who had forgotten to mention any of this in that damn letter she'd left me. I thought of the wad in the truck that had Sam's name on it, and wondered if that had been for this. "Right. It's in the truck, can you give me a minute? Cash is alright, right?"

"Sure is." He picked up the papers and I followed him to the living room where he sat down on the couch, then went out to my truck.

I pushed the box out of the way and began fishing around my duffel bag for the roll of twenties. At first, I couldn't find it among the ones, and I started to get worried someone had stolen it. Logically, that didn't make sense. Why would someone just take that when you could have the whole bag just as easy? I turned on the dome light so I could see better, when I saw the curtains move in the trailer's window. Was Sam watching me?

Feeling a little paranoid, I turned the light back off and dug around in the dark until I found the roll a little deeper in the bag. I counted it and, sure enough, it was seven hundred dollars. I grabbed the eighty from my purse and added it to the handful of cash, but I was twenty dollars short. I felt really weird about getting a bunch of ones out if Sam was looking, so I went in the house with what I had.

He was back on the couch when I entered, as if he had never moved. I handed him the twenties and put my thumbnail back in my mouth, nervous again. "I only got $780 here... Can I give you the extra twenty tomorrow? I need to hit the ATM."

He counted it like I had and, when he was satisfied with the amount, leaned back into the couch to slide the money into the front pocket of his jeans. "Ah, that's alright. Don't worry about it. You look trustworthy enough. Just don't go having any wild parties that I'm not invited to, huh?"

I blushed and giggled, then felt like an asshole for blushing and giggling. "No, really, I'll get it to you. I'll probably be in Merlotte's tomorrow night." Bill and Sookie were going to meet again and I wasn't going to miss it for the world.

He flattened out two stacks of paper on the coffee table, and I sat next to him on the couch to sign them. It was a pretty straight forward month to month lease, and I just glanced over it before I started filling in the top pages with my information. The contract did require my social security number, but I figured Sam was probably just trying to keep it on record for tax purposes. It was unlikely that he'd do a check on me. Just the same, I wrote down my actual information. Maybe I'd luck out and there'd be another girl in this universe with my SSN who magically had good credit.

As I scribbled my information in, Sam pointed out the window at my truck with his thumb. "Do you need a hand tomorrow with moving your stuff in? It doesn't look like you got a lot with you."

I glanced over his shoulder at the empty bed and I nodded. "Yeah, no, I'm fine. I don't have any furniture or anything. This is kinda my first place, so I've just got my clothes."

"Your aunt said you just graduated from college?"

I didn't even know who this fucking aunt was, let alone what backstory she had told him. I knew Sam was a smart guy, though. If he had any suspicions about me, it was likely that he was trying to trick me into admitting that I had no connection to whoever had set me up with this place. Not being the greatest liar, I decided to go with the truth as much as I could. "My aunt said that? I haven't exactly graduated yet. College and me have had a troubled relationship. I've been living with my family for a while and I was just pretty ready to get out on my own. This was about as far as I could afford to get."

He grinned at me and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I know what that's like. But why Bon Temps? Why not Shreveport?"

He might've been just being friendly, but it felt like an interrogation. I pretended like I was more focused on the lease than answering his questions, and tried not to seem defensive or twitchy. "Shreveport's a little out of my price range. Besides, I like small towns more than big cities. I like getting to know people. I think this will be a nice fit." Another half-truth. I really did prefer small towns. People always asked me why I left Gainesville for Vero Beach, so I was used to defending myself. It was easier living near family, but it was nice to have the lady at McDonald's call me by name, too. And I liked knowing my neighbors. It was just what I was used to.

Sam leaned back on the couch as he rubbed his hands on the thighs of his jeans. "Well, there's quite a few people to know here. Our little town has character, that's for sure." I had to laugh at that.

I finished signing the second bunch of papers, then set the pen down and pushed everything towards him. He signed a few of the pages as well, before taking one of the stacks and leaving me the other. "Alright, we should be all set."

"Great." We sat on the couch silently for a beat. I was all too aware of how close we were to each other and I had to bite back the urge to poke him or run away.

He stood up and looked around the living room for a moment, before walking towards the front door. "I'll let you get settled in, then."

I followed him and held the screen door open while he walked down the steps. "Yeah, thanks. It's been a long night."

He stopped halfway down the steps and pointed down the road. "If you need anything, I'm at the green house behind Merlotte's, alright? If I'm not there, someone at the bar will know where to find me."

"Okay, that's great. Thank you again, so much. Sorry for having kept you out this late."

"No problem. Oh, hold on..." He came back up two of the steps, so close to me I could smell him. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and started pulling one off. "You'll need this."

I laughed nervously and waited for him to get it off the ring. "Yeah, that'd probably help."

He handed me the key, then stared up at the sky, smiling. I bent forward to see what he was looking at. "Damn, it's big tonight."

The moon. It was as full as it could get and almost directly above us, lighting up the entire street. "Yeah, it is. Thank God, though. It's been a lifesaver to have a bright night." I turned to look back at him and his face was only a few inches from mine, watching me. I jumped back a foot and ducked my head down, before starting to babble nervously. "You know, I read somewhere it's getting closer these days."

"So it's just gonna keep getting bigger, then." He headed down the stairs and I leaned against the doorway as I watched him walk to his jeep. My legs suddenly felt weak. God, I was crushing on him hard. He knew how to wind a girl up.

Despite the slight interrogation I felt he had been giving me earlier, the attraction was overwhelming me. Damn, was it his jeans that looked so good or his ass? Probably his ass. I was getting the vapors. I rationalized that I was probably just horny. I'd rub one out later and become an intelligent human being again.

He waved at me from the door of the jeep, "Have a good one," then jumped in. I watched him drive away from my little porch.

I was alone again, but I had plenty to do. I forced myself to count to 10 before racing to my truck. With the duffel bag slung over my shoulder and carrying my box full of clothes, I maneuvered myself inside and sat them both down in front of the couch.

The first thing I did in my new place was exactly my style. I turned the TV on. The reception was a little bit fuzzy, not HD for sure, but it was more than satisfactory to me. I flipped CBS on and Letterman was saying something in his monologue about how vampires were cornering the dentistry market.

More important than TV, though, was the cash from the duffel bag. I wanted to count how much I had. I turned out all the lights in the living room and kitchen and shut the curtains on the windows. Feeling sufficiently safe from prying eyes, I took off my bra, unbuttoned my jeans and felt infinitely more comfortable. I spotted an air conditioner in the window, so I turned it on just to get the air circulating in the stuffy trailer. It was chilly, but smelled better.

I sat down on the couch Indian-style and started putting the one-dollar bills into stacks of twenty. It would've really helped to have some rubber bands or something, but I didn't. I didn't even have anything to eat or drink here. I'd have to go to the store tomorrow. I yawned and grabbed one of the spiral notebooks and wrote down a shopping list as I thought of items I needed while counting the money.

I laughed a little about how all of Letterman's jokes were inevitably about vampires. He could not seem to get over the fact that they existed, but I doubted I'd get over it either. I figured it was like if dogs or something had never been seen before, and then they were suddenly walking around and getting jobs. On one hand, it wasn't a big deal. It was just another type of person. On the other hand, "Look! There's one over there!" "Don't stare, Suzy. It's just a dog. They're just like us."

Was it rude to compare vampires to dogs? I felt guilty about the whole metaphor and decided not to let myself have that train of thought anymore.

By the time Craig Ferguson came on, I had almost filled the coffee table with 40 stacks. I started to realize that, for an A-B student, I was really fucking stupid when it came to estimations. I was already at double what I thought I had and I'd barely made a dent in the bag's contents. I was exhausted, though, so I put $100 in my purse and put the rest back in the duffel before taking it to my bedroom and pushing it under the bed.

All I wanted to do was go to sleep. I knew I had left the TV on, but I didn't care. I was so tired. But then I heard my mother's voice in my head. "Is the front door locked?"

As usual, I tried not to listen to her, but she always had a point. When you have a bag full of cash in the house, it's always better to be safe than sorry. So I dredged up all the energy I had and dragged my ass all the way back to the living room.

My mother had bred paranoia into me from a very young age, for various reasons. She was afraid that I'd be kidnapped, so we had a code word between us so that I knew never to trust a stranger unless they told it to me. She would check the locks of my windows every night before bed. Just to be safe.

My favorite, and the most useful, piece of advice from her was when she taught me never to tell any of my friends a secret of mine, unless I knew one of theirs first. In 3rd grade, my friend Terri told everyone that I had a crush on Matt Blankenship, so I quickly turned around and let everybody know that she'd touched her brother's dick. She never told a secret about me again, and I felt like my mother was a wise, wise woman.

When I got to the living room, I turned the TV and A/C off, but of course, the front door was indeed locked. I nearly crawled my way back to the bedroom. I had spent most of the last 6 hours in a constant state of emotional flux and it had taken its toll on me.

As my head hit the pillow, I wondered how clean the sheets were. Were they the last tenant's? Had they been washed ever? But I figured I was just plain lucky that Sam had even bothered to leave them on the bed. He was so nice. And rugged. A little short for me, but if I didn't wear heels I could make it work. Besides, we're all the same height in the dark. I couldn't stop thinking about him, though. His body, his smile, and I was ready to take my fantasies further when, before I knew it, I was asleep.

My dreams were rated NC-17.

* * *

Author's Note: Comments/Compliments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: The Quickest Way To Know A Woman Is To Go Shopping With Her

As soon as I opened my eyes the next morning, I sat straight up in bed. I felt like I was on a sugar rush. I checked the digital clock on the nightstand and it was almost 8 am. Hell, that was practically waking up at dawn for me, and I wasn't even grumpy! I was excited! I had the whole day in front of me.

I jumped out of bed, skipped to the living room, and grabbed my purse to go shower. But, when I checked the cupboard in the bathroom, there were no towels. I didn't even have any shampoo. Whatever Q that had given me everything I needed last night, hadn't thought ahead to bathing. James Bond would've been very disappointed, but I was too hyped up to feel anything short of gleeful.

I brushed my teeth and washed up a little in the sink, and used the edge of my shirt to dry off. I wished I'd remembered to wash the makeup off my face the night before, because the last thing I needed was breakouts, but whatever damage that had been done was done. "It's not a big deal. Let it go, Molly."

Shit. Not Molly. Anna.

I glared at my reflection in the mirror. "Listen up, chicky. Let's make a compromise here, okay? You can talk to yourself all you want. I won't even make you feel bad about it. But only if you use your new name. No. More. Mollys. Deal?"

That seemed fair. I nodded at my reflection and practiced as I gathered my stuff back together in my purse. "Anna, Anna, Anna. Be smart, Anna. You can do it, Anna. I'm Anna Paquin. Reservations for Paquin, please. Howdy, I'm Anna, what's your name?"

I sat down on the couch in the living room and added towels, shampoo and soap to my shopping list. I turned on the TV and decided to watch some of the Today Show while brushing my hair. At first there was a relatively tame segment about Obama that I didn't bother paying attention to, but then Ann Curry segued to vampire dating. A blond girl and a dark-haired guy were being interviewed from where they lived in Burlington.

I stared at the TV, my hand freezing in mid-stroke. I was sure I recognized that woman from somewhere. I thought she kind of looked like Lady Gaga, but I was about 80% sure that Lady Gaga wasn't a vampire. It took me a few seconds to puzzle it out, but I finally realized that she was the bride from the first vampire marriage in season one.

Ann was talking to them politely, but kept bringing up all the issues that people had with vampire rights. She asked him how he felt about not being able to have children and growing older while his fiancee stayed the same age.

He calmly responded that they had hopes to be able to adopt one day. As for growing old, he figured he had plenty of time to make the decision of whether he would become a vampire or not. All he knew was that he loved her, and he just wanted to be allowed to do so. When Ann asked what his parents thought about it, he admitted that they were shocked at first, but they were getting used to it.

"His mom doesn't like me very much." The vampire woman laughed and looked off camera for a second, but then seemed to stare directly at me through the TV. "I think I'm going to win her over, though." She said it like it was a threat.

I felt a little shiver run through me. She was a little scarier than the spokeswoman for vampire/human relationships should be, and I didn't figure that was going to help their cause. But I knew they were going to win the right to marry and it was only going to be so long before the world would go onto the next thing to hate. I mean, just wait until the Second Revelation. If everyone was worried about necrophilia now, their minds would explode when bestiality became a topic of everyday discussion.

I finished brushing my hair but, without a shower, I didn't even have a little bit of hope that I could wear it down, so I pulled it back into a high ponytail. As I lifted my arms to wrap my scrunchie in my hair, I smelled my underarms and was bothered enough to promptly put on some deodorant.

I changed in the living room to a new set of panties, back into the jeans from the night before, and the white bra. I wrote laundry detergent on my shopping list.

The only other shirt in the box was gray, linen, and more of a blouse than I was used to. It buttoned up and had three-quarter sleeves. It was a little tight, but still seemed classy and suitable for a work shirt. I wondered if that was its purpose. Was I supposed to get a job?

I shook my head and scoffed at Q, the name I'd decided to give to my anonymous benefactor. Fuck that. I had two months of rent paid and more than a grand in my duffel. I was not working until I had to. Besides, watching Sookie and keeping up a false identity was going to keep me busy enough.

As soon as I left my house, the bright sun hit me like a bag of bricks. Was this what mornings looked like? I was a night person, so being awake this early was more like being in a different world than Bon Temps was. I missed my sunglasses that were part of my trademark look, and immediately wanted to retreat into the safety of the house.

Staying indoors or waiting until dark wasn't really an option today, though. I knew I was going to spend most of the night in Merlotte's for Sookie and Bill's meeting #2, so I had to use the day to shop.

I hopped in the truck, and was surprised when the heat in the cab didn't seem so bad. I didn't even feel the need to put the A/C on blast. I shrugged and figured that Louisiana summers had nothing on Florida.

I was about to pull out of the driveway when I realized that I had no idea where a store was. I looked at the other houses on the street and wondered how weird it would be to ask my new neighbors to point the way to a Wal-Mart. Were there even Wal-marts in this universe? I thought I remembered a mention of one being in Marthaville, but was that in the books or the show? Wait a second, was I in a universe that was based on Alan Ball's series, or some kind of hybrid of that and the books?

That was some need-to-know information, so I decided to bother Sam rather than the neighbors. I figured I could get directions and do a little reconnaissance about the rules of this world at the same time. Besides, he did say I could come by if I needed anything.

My mind was firing on all cylinders and I was pleased to find that I remembered the way to Merlotte's easily. After parking in the lot in front of the restaurant, I went around the back to Sam's trailer.

I knocked on his door and didn't hear anything from inside. I was already knocking a second time when I heard him yell from inside, "I'm coming!" He opened the door angrily, then seemed surprised to see me. "Anna? Wow. What are you doing here?"

I felt like a total asshole. Of course I had woken him up. It was almost 9 am, an ungodly hour for night shift people. Sam had severe bedhead, dark circles under his eyes, and his shirt wasn't buttoned correctly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you'd be asleep. I can go-"

"No, no, it's alright." He ran a hand over his face and opened his eyes wide, seemingly to try make himself alert. He stepped back and opened the door wide for me. "Just... come on in."

I smiled and entered, but didn't go any farther into his house than the doorway. My mouth worked faster than my brain and, before I could stop it, I was saying, "You don't look so great."

He checked himself in a mirror on the wall, and then attempted to smooth his hair with his hands. "Yeah, I had a weird night... I'm probably just coming down with something." I figured this was the dark side of living in True Blood. You never had to see anyone sick or going to the bathroom on TV, but, in real life, these things happened. "Is everything okay with the trailer?"

I put my hands in my pockets and stared at the carpet. "Yeah, yeah, of course. I just was wondering if you could give me directions to a Wal-Mart or something. I need to pick up some groceries and towels and everything."

He turned to the kitchen and started filling up a coffee pot with water. "Oh, yeah, up in Monroe... You know the way there?"

"Um, no, not really..." I laughed nervously and started walking around the living room, checking out the pictures on the walls.

"Alright, just hold on..." He yawned, ripped a small sheet of paper off of a pad and started digging around in the drawers for something.

I decided to use the time to drill Sam for information. I picked up a framed picture of him and Sookie and turned it to him. "Is this your sister?" I figured the fastest way to get to know which version of Sam I was dealing with was to find out about his family. Book!Sam had siblings, TV!Sam didn't have any that he knew of yet.

He shut the kitchen drawer loudly and winced at the sound, then looked at the picture I was holding. He laughed, "Sookie? No, she's a waitress at the bar."

"Oh." I figured I needed to be less subtle. "Do you have any family around here?"

He glared at me and crossed his arms. Did I go too far? "It's just me, Anna."

I needed to pull back. Dummy up, like the kids in IT. I smiled and did my best impression of a flirty girl as I strutted up to the kitchen counter. "So... no wife or girlfriend or anything?"

Like every man I'd ever met, he couldn't help but grin at the compliment of a woman obviously coming onto him. "Not yet."

What would a flirty girl say next? I leaned forward on the counter, setting the photo to the side. "Really, a guy like you, available? That's just too tempting."

He glanced at the picture of him and Sookie as I put it down and seemed to get himself together. "There's someone I'm interested in, but it's not really..." He grew frustrated and went back to making coffee. "Listen, if you have a pen, I can draw up that map for you."

I dug in my purse, pulled the one from the spiral of my notebook, and placed it on the kitchen counter. I had an opening, though, so I decided to use a classic line. "Well, if you've got any single brothers, feel free to pass my number on."

"Sorry, no brothers." He shoved an old coffee filter into the trashcan and slammed it shut. At least now I knew that this was just the world of the show, plain and simple. But he seemed so short-tempered that I was ready to get out of there.

I sighed. "Too bad." He started drawing a map on the kitchen counter, and the room was silent except for the bubbling noise coming from the coffee maker. My stomach growled and I realized that what I wanted directions to, more than anything, was a McDonald's. It'd been ages since I was up early enough for a breakfast burrito and I wanted to get it while I could. "Is there a McDonald's in town?"

He sort of grunted and sighed, then thought for a moment. "There's one a few exits up the interstate... You think you'll need a map for that, too?"

I grimaced when I realized that Sam was going to have to draw me like 80 maps for everywhere I needed to go. If I had my laptop, I could've done it all myself. But, no matter how much money I had in the duffel, I wasn't really willing to waste a huge chunk of it on a computer. Besides, it seemed unlikely that they'd BestBuy would sell me one in return for a thousand one-dollar bills.

"You know what? I just need the internet. If there's like a library or a net cafe or something nearby, I can handle it myself."

"Yeah, sure, there's actually one close by." He flipped the paper over and drew a new map. He rubbed his forehead like he was getting a migraine, and I was reminded that he was sick. I felt awful for questioning him like I had.

But I felt less guilty when his biceps flexed in the sleeves of his shirt. I decided that coming over had been utterly worth it. No matter how worn out he looked, he was super fucking hot.

"Okay, so you know the road you came in on?" I nodded and leaned over the paper as he pointed out the directions. My hair was tickling the back of my neck, so I reached up and tightened my ponytail as he described the map. "Go back out that way turn left, and go straight until you see the Jiffy Lube. There's a road right after that and that's the main road. The SuperSave will be on your left, and the library's just behind it, alright?"

I probably looked confused because I was confused, but I was pretty sure I could find it. "I think I got it."

"You know what, here's my cell number on here, too. If you get lost, you can-" He wrote the number down, then looked up from the paper towards me. His eyes widened and he was staring at my chest. "Anna, your shirt."

I looked down and noticed one of the buttons had popped open and my bra and chest was showing. I eeped and turned around to re-fasten it, feeling embarrassed as hell.

He put his hand on my shoulder and turned me around. I could see from his face that he was confused and surprised. "You're not-"

I was panicking and I quickly slid out of his grasp. I needed to get out of there, NOW! I grabbed the map and started backing up out of the room. "This is great, thanks. Um, really sorry for bothering you. I'm just... going... away... now."

I practically ran through the front door and out onto the porch, and Sam followed me. "Wait, Anna, if you-"

I turned around and began walking backwards, determined to put as much room between us as possible. "I'm sorry again for waking you up, by the way. You should... drink some OJ!" I stumbled when I hit steps, but caught myself on the railing. "And, you know, go back to bed, okay? Feel better!" I chuckled nervously and waved, then turned around and walked away as fast as I could.

"Come back here!" I looked over my shoulder and I could see him still standing on the porch, but I was relieved that he wasn't following me. I didn't take a breath until I made it around the building.

When I was safely in my truck, I sighed and rested my head against the steering wheel. My daily, maybe hourly, regretting of my circumstances began again. Yes, I was in Bon Temps, but I was still a clumsy fucking oaf with insurmountable anxiety issues.

I looked down and the middle button of my shirt was open again. I re-buttoned it and hated my breasts for a second, but immediately took it back. Sure, clothes didn't fit me and I often had to wear the ugliest bras on Earth, but it was a small price to pay in the long run. I did love the girls, no matter how difficult they made my life.

But I wasn't looking forward to searching for outfits in Wal-mart. Besides finding shirts in my size, pants were also going to be difficult to find because of my too-long legs. My family was a mix of races, but mostly German and Swedish, which led to me being nearly 6 feet tall with a 36" inseam. The feeling of being petite was an envy that I'd always have.

My friends hated it when I complained about shopping, because a girl wasn't supposed to be pissed about having long legs and large breasts. But as much as it seemed like a gift, it was also a curse. Buttons popping open at inopportune times were just a drop in the bucket.

I mean, wearing anything strapless was a dream that would never come true. And stilettos were impossible. I had grown about a foot and 3 cup sizes over the summer between middle and high school, so my balance suffered and I never truly recovered from my awkward stage.

And then there were guys... It was a slim percent of the population that was taller than me. And do you know the kind of guy who dates large-breasted girls? Not sweet guys. They were intimidated by them.

Over-confident assholes LOVED me, though. They usually saw me as something to fuck, all the time. And sex is great, don't get me wrong. Swedes know that better than anyone. But even I didn't want to just get banged 24/7. And, when the sex stopped, the guys left. So I wound up alone with more than enough trust issues and low self-esteem to fill an entire season of Dr. Phil.

But, I rationalized, now I was in a new world with a fresh start. I wasn't going to be that old Molly anymore. I was optimistic to the point of self-delusion.

I figured maybe Sam liked what he saw and was into me. I had been a 6, 7 tops in Florida. But I figured I could possibly be a Louisiana 9. If he was into me, it'd be a really good thing. A really great thing. He wasn't a fuck em and leave em guy like Jason. It could be more than just "OMG, 80085!"

Excited by the possibility of a relationship with Sam and my embarrassment well-suppressed, I turned the radio on to the 80s station and lit a cigarette as I pulled out of the parking lot, singing along with Blondie's "Call Me" between puffs. The second cigarette was not quite so minty fresh, but comfortable. It settled my nerves and made me feel like a regular person. It made me want another one, but I had the whole pack left. I had the whole future in front of me. No need to rush.

Sam's directions were simple enough and I made it to the library safely. I had passed a Domino's and a Burger King, but I wasn't going to settle for anything less than a breakfast burrito so I just filed them away in my memory for later.

Bon Temps library was small, but thankfully allowed one computer for people who weren't part of the network. I didn't know my address, but I was able to find one online for Merlotte's. I used that as a starting point for maps to the Monroe Wal-Mart and a nearby McDonald's, and tried to imagine where else I might need to go to in the future.

The only nearby places I could think of events happening at during season one were Sookie's house and Fangtasia. Luckily, Fangtasia had a website and Bon Temps' cemetery's address were able to be retrieved relatively easy.

On the way to Wal-Mart, I found the McDonald's and paid for 5 breakfast burritos with ones, when I realized that I only had a little over $90 in my purse now. I growled at myself for being so stupid as to only bring that much with me. But I was used to paying with my debit card, not carrying cash.

I had to drive back to the house, count out $300 more, and eat my breakfast, so it was a little before 10 before I was back on the road again.

The Wal-Mart in Monroe was a Super one, thankfully. I was glad to be able to knock out the groceries at the same time as I got a few more clothes. I also had the smart idea to go to the service desk and change $200 for twenties.

In the clothing department, I mostly just grabbed some of the cheap vintage tees that I was used to wearing. I also got a pair of shorts to help me deal better with the heat. I was about to buy a long t-shirt to sleep in, but I decided to splurge a little and got a floral nightgown like Sookie wore. Who knows, maybe I'd get a little action while I was here and I wanted to look good for it.

I went to the dressing room to try everything on, but, when I put on the shorts, I found that they were shorter then they'd looked on the rack. And their length made me notice that the scars on my thighs had disappeared with my tattoo. I hadn't even thought to look for them the night before. It was really weird not to see the familiar, faint lines. I'd had issues with depression in high school and I had been a cutter, but now it was like I was... normal.

My depression, and most of my anxiety issues, had solved themselves a while ago. Not with psychiatrists, but with weed. I had attempted anti-depressants, but one day I realized that I hadn't masturbated in 2 months, so I stopped taking them. My stepbrother who was married with kids was doing well on Zoloft, but it made me feel like a different person. Since I had started smoking, I hadn't cut, I was able to get and keep a job, and I was easier to get along with overall.

I stared at my thighs and I was a little confused about how I felt about this turn of events. On one hand, I could wear shorts again. I wouldn't have to worry about anyone seeing them and having to explain my story. It was a new beginning and I wasn't going to have to be 'that girl' anymore. But on the other hand, I missed them. They were part of me. They were a part of my life. Who was I without them?

I changed back into the clothes I'd been wearing and went through the grocery aisles in a kind of daze, buying whatever I thought I would need when I saw it. But I couldn't stop thinking about the scars. Should I re-cut them so I could feel a sense of identity? That felt like cheating and I really had no desire to do it. I hadn't even craved a joint since I got here and I still didn't. I mean, sure, if someone passed one to me, I wouldn't say no. But I was too busy now with my Bon Temps life to even think of tracking some down. Of course, there was always Lafayette...

I shook the thought out of my head and tried not to focus on it. I'd jump off that bridge when I came to it and not a moment sooner.

I was in the freezer section and putting about 10 frozen pizzas in my cart, when I looked up and saw a mother and her kid staring at me. I felt self-conscious about how many I'd gotten and debated about putting some back.

But then I figured... fuck 'em. This is what I liked to eat.

Fuck that lady for judging me. I was still me, goddamn it. With or without my scars. I was still Molly, even if I had to say my name was Anna. I was going to eat pizza like it covered all of the food groups. I was going to love television like it was a family member. My favorite family member, at that.

I came to the realization that, with the idea of starting a new life, I had been forcing myself to become a different person. Some sort of caricature of what I thought a grownup was. Living on my own and doing chores were good and all, but it's not like I had to eat my fucking vegetables.

By the time I was at the check-out, with a full cart of everything I could possibly need, I was feeling better about the situation. I had put the floral nightgown back and gotten a long t-shirt that had a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the front. There was no need to change who I was. I was just me somewhere else.

The total was a little over $220 and I was sad to have to give her all the twenties that I'd worked so hard to get. I'd have to go and change more at the bank in Bon Temps or something.

I put everything in the back of my truck, but kept the frozen foods up front with me. I drove home and sang along with the radio. I was in a much better mood after deciding to stop pretending to be someone I wasn't.

As soon as I got back to the trailer, I quickly put away all my groceries, and changed into the nightshirt that I had bought. I threw my two dirty shirts, underwear and jeans in the washer.

After I changed the sheets on the bed and put the rest of my clothes in the set of drawers, I reached under the bed and got a scare when I couldn't feel the duffel bag. I laid down on the floor and was relieved when I saw that the bag was just a little further back than I thought.

I pulled it out and dragged it to the living room so I count my cash as I watched TV. There was nothing on but soap operas and Jerry Springer, so I went with Jerry and began stacking the ones in hundreds and wrapping them with the rubber bands that I got from Wal-Mart.

When I got to 10 stacks, I sat back on the couch and stared at the coffee table. I had a thousand dollars in front of me. I only held the cash that I gave Sam for a minute, so I was pretty excited to soak in having that much money right in front of me.

It was mine. All mine.

I admit that I went a little mad with happiness and walked the cash to the bedroom, ready to unwrap it all and roll around in it on the bed. Then I decided I was far too lazy to count and re-wrap all those ones again. A voice in my head also piped up with the piece of trivia that money was the dirtiest thing in the world.

The duffel bag was still at least half-full, so I went back to keep counting and wrapping. I changed the channel a few times and was pleasantly surprised to see Guiding Light still on the air. It had been my grandma's favorite. I wasn't really into the storyline anymore, but it felt familiar so I left it on.

I kept working at the cash until it was done, and only then did I allow myself to figure out how much I had. Adding the money from my purse, I had almost $4000. I did the math in my head and realized that I had been given a duffel bag with $5000 at the start of this. Well done, Q.

If rent was $300 a month, and let's say there was $200 in utilities... I figured I could live for 6 months and have $2000 left over for food and clothes. True Blood's first four seasons had only taken place over about 3 or 4 months... Theoretically, I could get a job towards the end and then just live here forever. Maybe I'd even get a job at Merlotte's. Everyone else seemed to, so why couldn't I?

I put the stacks back in the duffel, save for one and change that I put back in my purse, and slid the bag back under my bed. Sitting down on the mattress for a minute, I was pretty satisfied at a job well done.

I stared at the sun coming in through the lace curtains that I had shut over the window. I thought of Sookie's house and I wished I could be there right now, watching events unfold. Sookie was probably still tanning herself in the front yard. Maybe Jason was there, too. Or he was being picked up by the cops at this very second. That would be amazing to get to see. I wondered if I should go driving around and try and find the road crew...

But I wasn't really sure what time specific scenes had happened at. For all I knew, I'd already missed it. There were no clocks in the show, just night and day. It would be pointless to go looking for action. I was just going to have to wait until tonight to get to see more of the show.

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Author's Note: Comments/Compliments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Alcohol Is Proof That God Loves Us And Wants Us To Be Happy

The only thing I knew for sure was that Bill would be at Merlotte's sometime after sundown. I could be stuck waiting for him until midnight, worst-case scenario. I thought it would be a good idea to take a nap so that I could stay up, but I was too wired. I felt like I'd drank about 8 cups of coffee.

I didn't relish the possibility that I might be sitting around the restaurant for 5 hours, but I wasn't willing to risk missing the show, either. The earliest and latest I could arrive was around 7 if the sun set when it was supposed to. It's not like I had an almanac or anything. That's what a smart person would have gotten at the store. I pulled the notebook out of my purse to start a new shopping list, writing almanac at the top.

With the entire afternoon in front of me, I decided to take a nice, long, bubble bath since Sam had turned on the hot water like he'd said he would. As the tub filled, I threw a pizza in the microwave and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge. I was ready to have a picnic.

This was one of the few things I wasn't embarrassed about. I loved eating in the bath. Oh, my God, it's great. I'll tell strangers on the street about it! I mean, sure, you can't have spaghetti or like steak in there or anything, but finger foods were PERFECT for tub-eating. Light a few candles, throw in the bubbles, and have some chicken nuggets. You'll never be happier.

I washed my hair and forced myself to shave as I nibbled on lunch. They were as hairy as if I'd never touched them with a razor, light brown and soft like the hairs on my arms. I almost didn't want to start the ordeal of shaving all over again, but there was no getting around it. No matter how fine they were, it just wasn't right to have hairy legs.

I watched TV for the rest of the afternoon while I painted my nails and did a facial mask. Overall, I was pretty excited. Not only was I going to see Bill and Sookie again, but Sam would be there, too, and that was just plain awesome.

But I couldn't help but remember the embarrassment of how I'd acted in front of him earlier. Besides Buttongate 2008, heh, that rhymed, I was regretting coming onto him so strong. I mean, sure, I wasn't humping his leg or anything. Hell, it was practically just a friendly flirt. But now that I liked him and thought of him as a potential beau, it felt like too much, too soon. I didn't want to scare him off.

I'd been a long-time follower of the Tao of Steve, a Donal Logue movie I'd seen on late night TV. The Tao had three simple steps: Be desire, be excellent, and then be gone.

Hanging out with a guy you're into is difficult, especially if you're crazy like me. It's all too easy to come on strong. I'd had at least 3 boyfriends where I was the first one to say 'I love you.' Admittedly, they were all within the first month of knowing them, once I'd even said it on the first date. I was a strongly emotional girl and I had a tendency to fall fast and fall hard. But I learned quickly that by letting go of my desire to rush the relationship, you can just relax with a guy and become friends.

Being excellent in front of someone you like is just a good life lesson. When you're good at something, show it off. It doesn't matter if you're the best at poker or Star Wars movie trivia. If you can prove that you're impressive at something, it will leave a positive feeling of you in your partner's mind.

The last part was all about playing hard to get and leaving on a high note. It followed the idea that humans were hunters at heart. Heidegger had said, "We pursue that which retreats from us." When the person's liking you more than they ever will, disappear and leave them wanting more. They will chase after you.

The strategy worked more often than not and I wondered if I could undo everything that happened with Sam with some quick Tao-ing. I supposed that I could put some friendlier moves on him, maybe balance out the fact that I'd basically asked him to hook up with me. My best skill was taking care of people when they were at their worst, so I thought I might bring him some Campbell's chicken noodle because he was sick. I was damn good at being a Florence Nightingale type. I was always the girl who held her friends' hair when they puked.

I'd bring him the soup and he'd be so touched by the sentiment, that he'd invite me in. We'd sit and talk and...

"What, Molly?"

Anna.

"What, Anna? What do you think is going to happen next? You'll tell him that you're from an alternate future world? He'll pick you up in his arms like Prince Charming and carry you off to his room where you'll make love on a bed of rose petals while Barry White plays on the stereo?"

No, I wasn't going to tell him the truth. That was clearly insane. But I could tell him a story that's close enough to the truth. I'd just change a few key details and-

"Oh, great! A relationship based on a foundation of deception! You'll become Mrs. Anna Merlotte with the shady past! How long do you think it'd take before you forget one key lie and he figures everything out? He'd break up with you so fast your head would spin. That is, if he didn't lock you in a nuthut."

Okay, that's a sensible argument. But my low self-esteem didn't need to be so goddamned uppity about it. I didn't want to listen to that shit. I liked Sam. He was sweet and friendly and cute and everything I wanted in a guy. And I could be a really good girlfriend for him. I knew his history and I accepted him for it. After all, who hasn't wanted to kill a cheating ex and her new boyfriend? I sure as hell would react to him being a shape shifter better than Sookie did, too.

Shit. Sookie. That was a wake-up call that even the little optimistic voice couldn't ignore.

Even if it were a perfect world where Sam liked me, I was going to fuck everything up if I distracted him away from her. He needed to be available to ask her on a date to Bill's speech. He had to want to be with her so bad that he was willing to drive her around on an evidence hunt for Drew Marshall. And he had to save her from him, or she'd fucking die and this whole thing would end before it even started.

Who knew what other problems I'd caused just by existing here? I was like a butterfly in Africa causing hurricanes in Bon Temps.

I had to keep my impact on this world to a minimum, and that meant no chasing after Sam, no matter how much I wanted to. At least until after season four, when we caught up to a timeline that I knew nothing about and therefore couldn't screw up.

How utterly fucking depressing.

There had to be some time sooner than that, though. I figured I really just needed to leave him alone til the end of season one. I'd save him from his screwed up relationships with Daphne and Luna, and even Tara for that matter, without really affecting any of the plotlines. He'd still meet the Mickens and save Tommy if he had a girlfriend. He'd still save the town from Maryann. It seemed likely that all I had to do was wait two weeks and then I'd be in the clear. No problem.

By the time 7 rolled around, I had all but forgotten my disappointment. I could wait two little weeks to hook up with Sam and I'd just sit and watch the show until then.

I drove to Merlotte's and it was just about dark when I arrived. The restaurant wasn't nearly as packed as the night before, but it was still early. I took an empty seat at the bar.

Tara was tending, and Sam was nowhere to be seen, so she came over to me and pulled a lollipop out of her mouth. "You gonna drink something tonight?"

I felt embarrassed as hell to get called out like that, but yes. God, yes. I would like all of your alcohol, please. I had had a long day and I wanted to shut my mind down. "Do you have any Smirnoff Ice?" To be honest, I hated the taste of regular beers. Despite my tendency to get shit-faced as often as I could, I'd yet to overcome my gag reflex on that particular taste.

She raised an eyebrow at me and seemed somewhat disgusted by my question. "Uh, NO. We just got real beer."

I wasn't surprised. Not many bars carried Smirnoff Ice because it took a huge set of balls to be willing to order one. I'd even seen YouTube videos a few years back where people actually did this thing called "Ice-ing a Bro." The idea was that it was so nasty that it was a fucked up thing to force someone to chug an entire bottle. That being said, I was prepared with a backup. "How about a Sprite and vodka?"

She shrugged and poured half a can of Sprite and a lot of vodka into a glass of ice for me. "4 bucks."

I took 5 ones out of my purse and slid them across the bar, before turning around in my barstool to people-watch for a while. Everybody was talking to each other about this and that and I started feeling self-conscious that I didn't know anyone. I sipped my drink as I felt really lonely and awkward. It was strong and the soda couldn't overpower the taste of how much alcohol she'd put in.

The booths filled quickly and Sookie and Dawn worked hard to keep up. My seat was at the far end of the bar, but Sookie still had to walk past me to fill some orders. Every time she went by, I started singing the song that never ended in my head so I could make sure she wouldn't read my mind.

Getting bored quickly, I pulled the spiral notebook out of my purse and started doodling for a lack of any other ideas. I filled in a corner of the page with black and decided I could color in the whole page before anything interesting happened around here. I drew a couple dozen stars and a full moon, then began filling in the area around it.

I ordered another drink about every half hour or so and, by 9, the page was soaked in ink. I was more than a little tipsy and my bladder was about to burst, but I wasn't willing to get out of my seat and miss Bill cause I had to pee.

Arlene, Rene and Hoyt came in just as I was about ready to give in and head to the bathroom, and I could've kicked myself for not remembering that they were supposed to be here when Bill came in. I had had an opening before, but now I was stuck. At least, I supposed, that meant the show was definitely going to start soon.

They got themselves a pitcher of beer and started playing pool. I really liked Hoyt when he started wooing Jessica and it was nice to see him. Like Sam, he looked damn good in a flannel shirt. I always had a thing for Paul Bunyan and flannel was a major panty-dampener for me. I started imagining how great it would be when I got to see Alcide, no matter how short he was, but then I remembered he wasn't going to be in any public places scenes that I was going to be able to go.

Fuck. Double fuck. I didn't want to think about how I had already missed Sookie and Bill's rescue in the parking lot, or the Rattray fight tonight, or whatever else I wasn't going to get to see, so I pushed the thought away and returned to my doodling.

Sam came out from the back office with a clipboard and stopped short when he saw me. I tried to melt into the bar, hoping he would just let this whole morning pass without mention. There was no such luck. He walked directly towards me and leaned on the bar in front of my seat. "Anna, do you have a few minutes?"

My head was spinning. As much as I would've loved to play 'Molly And Sam Fall In Love,' I was set on staying as far away as I could from him until Rene was killed. "No, I don't think-"

I was interrupted when Sookie came storming out of the back and started yelling at Rene as soon as she'd passed me. She was pissed about Jason getting arrested and I thought the whole situation was rather overdramatic. Even though she didn't know the future like I did, we both knew that her brother was going to be fine. Glue couldn't stick to Jason Stackhouse. That boy was nothing but sweetness and light with a dash of retardation, and seemed to have a guardian angel watching over him that worked overtime.

I turned away from Sookie's rant, having heard it all before, and smiled at Sam who was staring at her with concern etched all over his face. I wanted to talk with him, but I couldn't risk being a distraction, so I tried to warn him away and hoped he'd take the hint. "I think you got your hands full enough with that girl to worry about me."

He had his mouth open to respond, but quickly closed it into a frown and stared over my head at the entrance of the bar. Bill had arrived.

Sookie and I turned around slowly, and I don't know which of us was more excited to see him. He looked happier than the last time and it did wonders for his appearance. As she walked across the room, I immediately started thinking about how romantic they were together, so passionate and in love. I wanted it to be me, feeling that excitement of a relationship beginning. Instead, I was trapped here trying to keep one from starting.

When she sat with him at the table, they held hands, and I realized it was probably a good thing that I wasn't Sookie. I'd never have been able to keep my cool. Hell, I wanted to rabbit out of the restaurant as fast as I could as it was, and I wasn't even as close to Bill as Tara was. My nerves were on fire from just watching the heat between them.

They looked around at everyone staring at them, and I seemed to be the only one with enough manners to pretend that I wasn't. But I could sense the hostility pouring off the rednecks like sweat. It was more than a little rude how everybody was near-glaring at the vampire. I knew that the show was supposed to be a metaphor for how minorities were treated, but it wasn't like he was draining her right in the middle of the restaurant. They were just two people talking and making heart-eyes at each other. If I walked around the bar and gave Sam head, no one would've even batted an eyelash, but THIS was wrong?

When they had re-focused on each other, it almost seemed like they were going to kiss and the tension between them grew stronger and stronger, but then deflated as Bill stood up and left Merlotte's.

I gaped at the door he had exited from and I wanted to scream. I'd waited- a quick check of the clock- two and a half hours for that? Fuck, that hadn't even lasted 5 minutes!

Sam threw the bar towel down and stormed over to Sookie, grabbing her rather roughly and dragging her off to the back. I was a little freaked about how he was man-handling her, but I knew he was a good guy and just cared a little too much. Personally, I was just jealous again that she was getting all sorts of action from every cute guy in the series and I was in self-inflicted solitary confinement.

Now that my pathetically short show was over, I was ready to go home and sleep off this whole fucked up day, but I felt a little dizzy when I stood up. I still needed to pee like a racehorse, so I stuffed my notebook in my purse and walked over to Dawn as she stood by the kitchen window. I could hear Sam yelling from the back, but not the specific words he was saying.

When she turned around and noticed me, she rolled her eyes a little. "You know, you can seat yourself wherever you like, sugar. You don't have to wait for me."

I smiled and nervously scratched my arm. "Actually, I was just wondering where the restroom was."

"Oh. Yeah." She balanced her tray on her hip and pointed down the hallway. "Straight back that way and to the right."

I took a few wobbly steps away from her, and then spun around so fast that I needed to grab the wall to keep from falling over. "You know what? Can I order a Lafayette burger to go, too?"

She scribbled something down on her pad and Sam's yell echoed from the back, "Like a goddamn vigilante!"

Dawn grinned and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I promise it ain't usually this rowdy here. Well, it is, but usually it's less-"

"No, no, it's fine. It's just been a long night. I'll be waiting over at the bar, okay?"

She nodded and took my order to the kitchen, and I finally went to the bathroom. Peeing out everything I'd drank helped to sober me up a little. When I exited the stall, the arguing had stopped and it was eerily quiet. I washed my hands and figured that, right now, Sam and Sookie were probably having a nice, awkward hug. Lucky bitch.

Back at the bar, I was waiting for Dawn so I could get out of there as soon as she came back, when I overheard Rene and Arlene going back and forth about Sookie and Jason. Arlene couldn't believe Sookie'd had the nerve to start mooning over a vampire when her brother was in trouble, but Rene was telling her to mind her own business.

My mind was frazzled by an evening of disappointments and a little too much drinking, so I really didn't want to hear Arlene's shit right now. For a chick that was going to give birth to a monster baby, she was a real close-minded little bitch. I wanted to scream at her and shake the crazy out of her head and tell her that she should watch her motherfucking mouth. But I clenched my teeth and decided to take Rene's and my own advice and keep my shit to myself.

Before Dawn could come back with my burger, Sam and Tara came out from the back hall together. Tara went right back to pouring drinks without a word, but Sam came around and stood directly in front of me. "I need to talk to you in my office. Right now."

He was angry, but seemed sad, too. He twisted his fingers in the loops of his jeans while he attempted to keep his voice neutral. I was not in the mood for a lecture, though, and all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed. "Sam, listen, whatever you think we need to talk about, we don't. I'm a little drunk and-"

He cut me off in mid-babble and leaned close to whisper to me. His breath tickled my ear and it was sexy for all of a millisecond until he said, "I need to know why you got a duffel bag full of cash under your bed and what you are-"

My eyes widened in shock for a moment, and then narrowed in anger. He went through my stuff? He went through my stuff! How fucking dare he! I was pretty sure I could call the cops about that, but that would've been as idiotic as reporting my weed stolen. It would be hard to explain that my landlord had found my stash of money that had appeared from nowhere. "You been in my trailer, Sam Merlotte?"

He raised an eyebrow at me, cocky as hell for having cornered me. "Actually, it's my trailer, Mizz Paquin. Now how about you come with me to the office and we can talk about it in private."

I glared, grabbed my purse, and followed him, shouting over my shoulder, "Tara, please tell Dawn I'll be right back, okay?"

I heard her reply of "I'm not your fucking secretary!" but I ignored her.

When we got to his office, he sat in the chair behind the desk and I took the chair in front of it. I felt like I was being called in front of the principal and decided that this situation wasn't too far off from that. I was pissed that he went into my trailer, but more worried about the repercussions of being caught. What did he know? Surely, I wasn't the only girl in this town to keep a lot of money under my mattress. I could just say I don't trust banks. I could say that I was a stripper and keeping my money off the record for tax purposes. That explained away the ones, at least. Probably would be classier to say I'd been a waitress though.

Belatedly, I realized that I hadn't burned the letter like Q told me to. Fuck, he knew everything then! Shit! I quickly started babbling out my apologies. "I know this is all crazy and I don't really have a reasonable explanation, but if you'll just let me-"

He leaned toward me and held his hands together on the desk. "I must seem like a pretty gullible guy to you, huh?"

The guilt trip. Good move. He'd make a great dad. I felt like my stomach roll and I prayed that I didn't throw up in front of him. That's all, God. Just don't let me puke right here on his nice rug. Make me feel as sick as you want later, but let me get out of this office first.

I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat and stared at my lap. "I don't think you're gullible. I think you're pretty great. You've been real kind to me ever since I got here. Well, except for the going through my house stuff. But it's not like this is the sort of thing you just start telling people as soon as you meet them."

He scratched the back of his neck like a little boy who'd been caught stealing cookies, and I was glad he was a good enough person to feel bad about what he'd done. "I know what you mean. But you've gotta see it from my side of the table here, though. You show up in my town and my bar the very same night as a vampire tries to make off with one of my waitresses, I'm gonna be curious about your past enough to want to check your credit-"

Fuck.

"And when somebody gets murdered, I'm gonna need to know what the hell you're doing here so I can protect my people. So tell me, Anna. What are your plans here? And you better tell me the truth, because I'm pretty good at smelling bullshit from a mile away."

I had to pull off a hell of a lie, then. I knew Sam's kryptonite was women crying and I reckoned that anything I said would work if it was 'Poor Me' enough. A million stories ran through my head, most of them plots to Lifetime movies. I could say I was running from an abusive boyfriend. Or work the empathy angle and say that my parents abandoned me and I was lucky to have enough savings to get out on my own. Maybe they even died in a fiery car crash because of my dad's work with the Florida mafia. Was there a Florida mafia?

I couldn't decide what story to tell and, when I didn't answer immediately, Sam walked around the table and put a hand on my shoulder. "I like to think I'm a good judge of character. I want to trust you here. But you gotta talk to me if you expect me to be able to help you, Anna. I need to know what kind of person you are."

Anna? We were in a private area and he was still calling me by my fake name. He didn't find the letter? Where was it? I thought back to the last time I'd seen it and realized that it must've still been under my seat in the truck with the title and map to Merlotte's. It was like the spotlight of Hallelujah was shining down on me and I couldn't repress a smile.

I was saved. All Sam had found was a bag of money under my bed. And instead of turning me in to the police, he was comforting me. His kindness made me feel like I was the worst person on the face of the earth for planning out which movie plot to tell him was my back story. It wasn't right. "Sam, I don't want to lie to you."

He smiled and crossed his arms, leaning back against the desk with his legs crossed in front of him. "Well, that's a good start."

I swallowed before closing my eyes and bracing myself to tell him the truth. I wanted to spill my guts. But, as I tried to gather my thoughts, I just couldn't find the courage to screw up his continuity and possibly ruin his life in the process. I let out a long breath and looked up into his face sadly. "I can't tell you the truth, though. I just can't. It's too much and you won't understand. But I promise, I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just trying to start a life here. Please. Believe me. I'm a good person. I'm not a criminal. Trust me." Coward.

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, then turned to look out the window at the parking lot. "Okay. I can understand that. But here's what we're going to do. You're going to have to be the best tenant I ever had. Your rent's not gonna be a day late and you're going to have to come in to Merlotte's at least once a week so that I can check up on you." Sam twisted his upper body around and looked at me. "And if anything strange happens again like last night, you're going to tell me everything. Because, so help me God, I will not let you hurt these people."

I nodded eagerly. "Trust me. You will not have another reason to suspect me of anything. In fact," I pulled some ones out of my purse and threw them on the table. "Here's that twenty I owe you. I swear, you won't regret this."

He turned around glanced at the money before putting it in his pocket, then held onto the arms of my chair and looked me directly in the eyes. "I hope not. But, listen, when you're ready to talk, I want you to know you can come to me, you hear? I can understand these things."

I was so relieved about not being forced to tell my secrets and moved by the concern on his face, that I jumped out of the chair and threw my arms around him. "I LOVE YOU, SAM! You are THE GREATEST!"

I heard his laugh as he patted my back and pulled me away from him. "Wow, how much have you had to drink?"

I thought back over the night. "Only like... 4, I think? Maybe 5. I'm totally fine, though. I peed so I'm good."

"Oh, Lord..." He couldn't stop laughing. What was so funny? "This is too dangerous. Give me your keys."

Seriously, I could drive. I was not that fucked up. I mean, I was a little dizzy and still puke-ready, but more than capable to make the short distance back to my trailer. I could tell by the serious face he was sporting, though, that it wouldn't be likely he'd take no for an answer. Needless to say, I still didn't want to give him my keys and let him have the ability to find the Molly letter. "What if we compromise and you let me keep them but I'll promise to walk home?"

He studied my appearance and nodded. "Alright, that's fair." He walked me back out to the bar and stayed with me til I sat down. I was steady, but I wasn't willing to say so in case he stopped touching me. "I expect to see your truck in the parking lot when you leave."

I nodded very seriously, or so I thought. "Yes, Sir!"

"How about you give me a ring when you get home, so I know everything's all right."

"I will. Thanks, Sam." He left and I mumbled to myself, "Well, that was a freebie," as soon as he was out of earshot. I successfully navigated that whole conversation and managed to even come out a little better than I started. He was such a sweetheart, looking out for me and taking care of me. Definitely a guy I could fall in love with.

I ordered another drink since I was going to have to walk home anyway. It was my lucky day and I wanted to celebrate a little.

* * *

Author's Note: Comments/Compliments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: The Art Of Looking For Trouble, Finding It Everywhere, Diagnosing It Incorrectly And Applying The Wrong Remedies

The first time I ever got drunk was when I was 14 with my two best friends.

Margaret Cho once described that in every group of three friends there is the smart one, the sweet one, and then there's the ho. I was actually the sweet one in our trio, which really said how smart and ho-ish the other girls had to be to beat me to their titles.

Sandra, at the ripe age of 13, had already lost her virginity and was dating a married couple while cheating on her psychotic boyfriend. Psychotic is not an understatement here. Once, he threatened to kill himself on at least 17 of 29 different voice mails when she went on vacation to Disney World for the weekend.

Tonya was the boss of our group, despite her inability to grow over five feet tall, because she had the confidence of a cocky chihuahua and her dad was in jail.

Tonya had already drank before, but Sandra and I hadn't because we didn't want to act like assholes at parties. So we pooled our cash and Sandra's married boyfriend got us two pints of vodka and a one of SoCo and Tonya agreed to be the designated babysitter for us.

The thing about alcohol is that, when you have never done it before, the only thing you know is that drinking makes you honest. In Vino Veritas, right? Well, it's sort of true, but not really. See, what it does is make you say anything that you would never want to say out loud. Not saying the stupid shit that we think of off the top of our heads is what separates us from the animals. When that filter's gone, you are an ASSHOLE and an embarrassment to yourself.

Sandra did about 5 shots before she proclaimed to everyone that she was a bisexual, which we all already knew, and horny. She proceeded to attempt to call 911 for sex, then peed on the floor so hard that there was a rainbow, I swear it. Then she blacked out.

I say blacked out because, when she woke up naked 3 hours later, the first thing she asked was, "Why am I naked?" She couldn't remember anything after her second shot.

I drank about 8 shots before I started crying and forcing everyone to tell me I was their best friend. Tonya wound up slapping me over and over again because I was wailing loudly and she thought I'd wake her mom up. I asked her through my tears, "Why are you doing this? Why don't you slap Sandra? That bitch is crazy! She's pissing on the fucking floor!"

Tonya had a simple response to that which stayed with me to this day. "When I hit you, you actually shut up for a few minutes."

The reason for this very abbreviated version of my first night getting wasted is to explain a few things. First of all, it's funny. Secondly, unlike Sandra, I have always been cursed with the memory of everything I do while I'm drunk. I also wanted you to know that (in case you hadn't gotten the picture already) at my core I am not a confident person no matter how much I try to portray one.

And, finally, the lesson I learned from Tonya was that if you don't like what someone's doing, you can hit them, and they will stop doing it. For a little while, at least.

To sum up the moral of my fable, drunk people are NOT themselves. They are caricatures of regular people who should be forgiven and then advised to use more moderation in the future.

By the time I did eventually leave Merlotte's, I had had about 9 drinks total. But, before I went home and somewhere around drink #7, I took it upon myself to try to make friends with the locals. Because I am Idiot Jed, glutton for punishment.

A group of guys were gathered around the pool table and I thought it would be a good idea if I bought us all shots of SoCo. I figured I could repress my liberal attitude and highlight my love of guns, classic rock and flannel, and then they'd put me on their shoulders and declare me their queen.

...I'm book-smart, not people-smart, damn it...

Now, I want you to know that there are many, MANY good people in Southern America. But none of them are in a bar that is playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's entire discography at 11 o'clock at night. I love Lynyrd, truly I do. Tuesday's Gone is a great song. But for some reason it brings out the worst in rednecks.

A little after I had sat down, one of the guys decided to show me a trick where you pour some pepper into a cup of water. He proclaimed that this was black people in a pool. I didn't like the sound of the joke, but I let him continue. He poured some salt in the water and said, "Then white people get in and everything's fine, right? All of them are swimming together, having a party."

I smiled and nodded, thinking that was the end, but then he added dish detergent to the water and shouted, "WATCH OUT! IT'S MEXICANS!" All the salt and pepper that had been spread out in the water was immediately on the edges of the cup, as if they were getting out of the pool.

I couldn't help but laugh at the stupid joke, but it didn't take long for the conversation to turn to fags and vamps and everything that they hated after that. I remember trying to explain the plot to Philadelphia to them before storming off in a huff. In all honesty, it probably came out something like, "Tom Hanks deserves his job! *mumble mumble* Denzel Washington understands! *mumble mumble* You only have your stupid fucking flannel shirts cause gay people make them! *mumble, another shot, mumble* You'd fucking love it if a vampire sucked your cock, they don't have to breathe! *mumble mumble, accusatory finger point* Your dick's the size of a toothpick, so they wouldn't even give you head unless they had to clean your teeth! *laugh at my own joke so hard that I fall off the chair, mumble mumble* Fuck you guys, I'm going home."

I stumbled outside, belligerent and angry, and smoked a cigarette to try to calm myself down. Probably a mistake, as I liked to think of the third cigarette as the rebel cigarette. It was usually on my third one when I remembered every anti-smoking ad I'd ever seen and started hating myself for about 5 seconds. Then I'd quickly get mad and say, "Fuck you, Mom! They're my lungs and I'm gonna fuck 'em up all I want!" and finish smoking it with my middle finger raised towards the sky.

Leaning against the wall of Merlotte's, my rebellious phase wasn't focused on my mother as much as it was on the assholes who were currently probably mocking my Yankee sensibilities towards different species. Every time I heard laughter coming from inside, I was sure it was about me. SURE of it. It was high school all over again. Me being a weirdo and feeling like an angry otusider.

I had lived the life of an unnormal before, hated and teased by the rodeo types for being a goth girl in a small town. One time at a carnival, I was wearing a new collar I'd gotten from a bondage shop when some hicks asked me to be their fucking dog. I gave them the bird and moved on, but they just followed me and my friends from booth to booth the entire fucking night, making rude comments here and there. It was a hard life, but I had chosen to stand out from the crowd, so I suffered through it. Mostly in silence.

But I felt awful for poor Bill and the other vampires who weren't even asking for it like I felt I had been. Bill was one of them, for God's sakes. Literally, the very definition of a Confederate. But they still hated him as if he had called Toby Keith a nazi.

And Sookie. Sure, she did look weird when she just stood at people's tables and didn't say a word, but she had lived here her whole life. There was no need to always be talking shit about her.

I tried to let the cigarette calm me down, but the alcohol counteracted any relaxing effects of smoking. I really wanted to fight somebody. I wanted to put on some combat boots and literally stomp someone's ass into the ground. It had been years since I'd gone full-goth, my black lipstick a thing of the past, but being here reminded me why I did it. I wanted everyone to know that I wasn't like the pieces of shit they seemed more than happy to portray. But I also wanted them to know that I wasn't an angel either. I was the fucking grim reaper and they should've been fucking scared of me.

I probably should've asked Sam for a ride home, but I hadn't seen him all night and I didn't want to bother him in his office. Still, for the record, being drunk and pissed off at rednecks and alone in a parking lot with their trucks is no way to go through life.

In a fit of passive aggression, I wound up gathering beer bottles out of the dumpster and putting them under the wheels of every vehicle I could find until I got bored and wanted to go home. So, three trucks, really. I had no idea if it would work or anything, but I recalled that my friend's sister ran over a beer bottle once and it shredded her tire so I figured it would do.

Then I took off for my trailer. If you ever have to walk a mile, do it drunk. It goes by like no time at all. I enjoyed it even though, while I danced my way home, I twisted my leg the wrong way and fell down on my ass at one point. It had hurt but I found the whole situation hilarious, so we'll call that one a draw.

When I finally made it inside, I laid on the couch with one foot on the ground so that I didn't puke. It was a trick my mom taught me and I highly recommend it. I spent the rest of the evening watching TV and wound up being surprised by the fact that Conan was on at 11:30. It was an amazing moment for me. Not only because, hey! Conan on NBC! But also, since I'd never lived anywhere but the east coast, it was really hard to wrap my mind around the fact that shows came on an hour earlier than they should. I took about 15 minutes thinking over the subtleties of time zones, then decided I was horny and tried to force my hand down the front of my still-buttoned jeans. But then I passed out before I even got under my panties.

I never did puke, though. So... win?

* * *

I woke up the next morning around 9 with the TV still on and my hand still down my pants. It was better than waking up with someone else's hand there, though, so I shrugged and turned the TV off and went back to sleep.

The next time I woke up, I stayed awake. It was pleasant to find that I didn't have a real bad hangover. Sure, I wasn't running at 120% like the last morning, but I was pretty much fine, if not a little cranky. I ate a mini-pizza and looked for something to watch, but all I could find was the news. The fucking worst show known to man. They looked and sounded like fucking librarians reading books at me, so I turned the TV back off with disgust.

I flopped around on the couch and thought about chores I could do to keep myself busy, but the laundry was done and the place was still relatively spotless. God, I was so fucking bored. I had no way to fill my time and no way to distract myself away from the fact that my situation officially sucked.

I knew that, tonight, Bill would go and meet Gran and there probably wouldn't be an invitation to that waiting in my mailbox. Tomorrow, Malcolm and Diane would arrive to fuck shit up and I was going to have to miss that, too. So much of the show from here on out was behind closed doors. Even the thought of peeking through Bill's window and watching Sookie lose her virginity seemed creepy and too dangerous if I got caught. Some of the most important moments of their relationship, of the entire series, were slipping right through my fingers and I wanted to throw another tantrum.

There had to be more events in public places... But, even though I figured I could go to Fangtasia and see her meet Eric in a few days, and there'd be Bill's speech at the church, what could I do then? Ask Sookie to let you come along while she interrogates possible embezzlers? Yeah, I'm sure she'd understand.

I was disappointed by the whole thing and regretted this being my fantasy. I should've wished to be Sookie. I should've wished to be a fly on the wall. Hell, I couldn't even go to the French restaurant and watch Bill propose at the end of season two. My best hope for action was joining Maryann's orgy and probably wind up cutting off my fingers like Jane Bodehouse. With my luck, it was probably more likely that Mortuary Mike would wind up giving it to me doggy-style.

This was fucking stupid. I was in True Blood and BORED? My dreams had come true and I was stuck in this goddamn house? It was entirely ridiculous. There had to be a solution. I was the smartest girl I knew. My friends always got caught up in ridiculous scenarios, like bad relationships or drunken drama, but I was always the one who could come up with a radical fix. This would be no different.

I just had to be logical. Put a name to the problem.

Problem: There was nothing to do.

Solution: Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Nothing was coming to me, so I asked myself what did I WANT to do? I could buy something... I could go back out to Merlotte's and meet some NICE people, maybe...

But, no. Going out was a bad idea. I promised Sam I'd be good and stay out of trouble and I didn't want a rerun of last night's events. I did have fun though. I liked getting in over my head and seeing how I reacted to crazy shit going down.

That's when I realized that I was getting a familiar itch under my skin, the kind that made me want to drive too fast and date guys who were assholes. The relatively sane and reasonable voices in my head tried to shut up that facet of my personality, but it was strong and loud and craving more drama. Danger.

I wanted to feel interested in life and I wanted it right now. I knew I'd promised Sam, but fuck it. He was a fictional character and I couldn't even be around him that much for two weeks. Besides, like they always say, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I decided then and there to go to the worst place I could think of. Fangtasia. It was a beautifully simple plan. I couldn't fuck up any plot lines if I stayed away from Eric. I would just go and find some deliciously handsome and hungry vamp and do a little fang-banging. A little blood was a small price to pay to get some spice in my life. Who would it hurt?

Well, sure, theoretically, it could hurt me. I might wind up kidnapped by some Franklin Mott-like character and glamoured within an inch of my life. Or worse, dead. But if I had to choose a way to die, 'vampire' was up there with 'ecstasy overdose.'

Anyways, I didn't really have a fear of death. I'd always been a few steps closer to suicide than most people wanted to know about. It should've been depressing, but it was a very freeing feeling for me. Whenever a situation got too bad, I told myself that if it got any worse and I just couldn't stand it, I'd just jump off a building and it'd all be over. So far nothing ever got that bad.

So, if I went to Fangtasia, there was no real downside. If I met a vamp, I'd either have a short conversation or a long one, possibly ending with biting, sex, and/or my death. Or I'd be ignored for prettier fangbangers, go home, but at least I'd have had a semi-interesting night and I could get a souvenir shirt along the way.

Before I gave myself any time to think things through and risk backing out or coming to my senses, I went to my bedroom closet to check out clothing options. I had nothing but jeans and the one dress I had gotten from Q. I slipped it on and checked myself out in the mirror.

The dress was dark, forest green, sleeveless, and a little above knee-length, with black buttons up the front. Very much a sundress, but it could pass for an evening sundress... I'm pretty sure I just made that term up.

Anyways, it would almost do the job for the goth vibe, but I wished I had some more makeup and a black jacket to complete the ensemble. I looked too much like a normal girl. Maybe if I dyed my hair... I did miss the red.

But wouldn't it be better if I stood out a little by going more normal? Wouldn't I get more action if I went dressed as vampire bait like Sookie had?

No. I would be risking the possibility that Eric would notice me. I needed to go in and out with no muss or fuss. That meant goth-ing up my outfit, which required a trip to the mall. I'd have to hit the library again to find directions.

I went to the bathroom and stripped before I tried to figure out the shower. I'm glad to say I succeeded after a few false tries. But, when the cold water streamed down on me, it was like a thousand tiny knives stabbing my body. I'd never felt such pain in my life, so I screamed and jumped out of the tub. I covered myself in a towel and shivered for a few minutes before I dared to put my hand back in to test the water. I can't tell you how relieved I was to feel that it had heated up enough that I could get back in and shampoo my hair.

I cleaned up quickly, feeling like I'd been scarred for life from showers. I decided never to take one again. Baths forever. I couldn't figure out how it'd gotten so cold when it was like almost 100 degrees out, but whatever. Stupid Louisiana.

As soon as I was out and dried off, I brushed out my hair and slipped into the green dress and the only pair of shoes I had, my black sandals. I grabbed my purse, a few stacks of hundreds, and headed out to the door.

It was much less fun to walk sober back to Merlotte's, but it was easier to handle the summer day with a pair of large sunglasses. As soon as I entered the parking lot, I could see beer bottles shining under the back wheels of my truck. I couldn't help but laugh at Drunk Molly's antics. At least Sam and Sookie didn't drive a truck, so they were probably spared from my prank.

I threw the bottles into the back and, as soon as I got in, I dug under my seat and found the stack of papers I'd left behind. The letter was still there. I ripped off the part of the envelope that had my name on it, and twisted the letter so that the note part was in the point and it'd be the first to burn. I lit it with my lighter right away, wanting to get rid of my evidence as soon as possible.

As soon as the fire took, I realized that I had a flaming stick in my hand. I started panicking and it was like a ticking time bomb, counting down the seconds I had to figure out what to do with it. I quickly opened the door of the truck and threw it on the ground. I let it burn until I was pretty sure there was nothing legible left before stomping on it. A spark hit my foot, but it didn't really hurt, so I decided I won that one. I apologized to God for leaving trash on the ground and swore to myself that I'd pick up some litter later to balance out the karma.

After a quick stop at Bon Temps' First National Bank where I turned $500 in ones into twenties, I was at the library and Googling the nearest mall when I saw Sam walk up to the check-out counter with a stack of books. I was so excited to see him that I closed the window I was using and skipped over to him, bouncing to a stop right behind him as I put my hands over his eyes. "Guess who!"

"Anna!" He quickly turned around and looked at me with shifty eyes, like he was nervous about something, and stood in front of his books so I couldn't see them while the librarian scanned the bar codes.

I pouted in what I hoped was a cute way, and tried to peek around his body to see what he was trying to hide from me, but he kept moving into my line of vision. "How'd you know it was me? What have you got there?"

He smiled at me politely, but continued to block my view. "You always smell like smoke."

I sniffed my clothes, but I couldn't smell anything. "I haven't even had one today... I guess it really does get on everything, though..." Then I remembered that I'd just lit a fire in his restaurant's parking lot. Right.

He turned around for a moment and told the librarian, "I'd like those in a bag," before quickly turning back to me. He was trying too hard to keep the books from me and I was too nosy to not try to take another peek, so he walked around me and turned me away from the counter. "So, Anna... Staying out of trouble?"

Absolutely not, officer. But a lie by omission is practically not a lie, so I dodged the question. "I'm in a library, Sam. What do you think?"

He grinned and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, that's good, then."

"Actually, I was just trying to print out a map to the mall so I could pick up some new kicks. How about you?" I tried to look behind me again, but he put both hands on my shoulders and kept me facing him. "This is really not the way to act when you're hiding something, Sam Merlotte. It's pretty conspicuous. Or inconspicuous. The one where it's obvious that you're up to no good."

He smiled at me and leaned forward conspiratorially, whispering, "We've all got our secrets." He winked and I melted a little at his Southern boy charm, but I knew his tricks. He was good at keeping secrets and even better at distracting people away from them. But when he stepped closer to me and put his hands on the table behind me, I was more than willing to forget whatever he was checking out.

His face was so close to mine that I was sure he was going to kiss me. I knew I should dodge and run away, but fuck it. I'd worry about the consequences later. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, but then he snatched the bag of books from the counter and started backing out. "I gotta run, but you have a good day at the mall, now."

I was pissed and more than a little deflated. But the bag was white and sort of see-through, so I could see the front cover of one of his books- "Taboo: Sex, Religion and Magick." I didn't blame him for trying to hide porn from me, but then my more reasonable side figured he was probably doing research on Maryann. She'd really fucked up his head, the poor guy. I decided to let him go and think that he'd gotten away with something. "Alright then! You have a good day too!"

When Sam left, I quickly printed out the directions I needed and set off for Monroe, with a quick stop at Taco Bell and a Hess for fuel for me and my car.

The Pecanland Mall was different than the ones in Florida. Mostly because it was lit mostly by fluorescence instead of sunlight, and didn't have near as many palm trees. It was smaller, too, but I was able to find a cheap black jacket at Burlington Coat Factory. It was thin and longer than my dress, but it fit the style I was going for. I was about to leave when I spotted their shoe section.

I really hated shoe shopping. I had to try on 6 pairs before I found any that fit right. Or I was sick and tired of being there so I settled. Either way, I found a pretty fierce set of calf-length, chunky-heeled, Nancy Sinatra-style boots that didn't quite go with the dress I was wearing, but I loved them because they made me feel like a sexy badass. They were a little more than I wanted to spend, but the sales lady threw in a few pairs of socks for free, so it was worth it.

At Payless, I got a cheap pair of strappy black sandals to go with my dress. Without trying them on, I snagged a pair of sneakers, too, even though I hardly ever wore them. The soles of sneakers were always so flat that I felt like I was walking with duck feet, but I figured it was a good idea to keep them on hand in case I was in a situation where I needed to run or wear comfortable shoes. Just in case.

I was more than ready to leave and end my hours of hell-shopping; nevertheless, when I walked past a Spencer's, I had to stop in. The sex area had a whole subsection on vampire fucking and I was more than tempted to buy a book, but I knew from experience that they'd mostly be filled with jokes. Still, the "Tasty Blood" pills seemed like a good gag gift for Sookie, even if they were just knock-off cinnamon candies.

I scanned through the Living Dead Dolls, but forced myself to move on to the accessories section. A lot of it was pretty gauche, but they had some simple chains that were specifically NOT-SILVER and I bought one with some black eye shadow, liner, and red-red lipstick. I figured I was going to look pretty tacky, but go big or go home, right?

I was back home by 6 and had more than enough time to get ready to go. I remembered Jersey Shore's "T-Shirt Time" and decided to take off my dress. I ran it through the dryer a little wet to get the wrinkles out before I would put it on at the last minute.

It didn't take long for me to get ready. It would've been strange to even imagine putting products in my hair or blow-drying it. I usually just let it hang down however it chose. I'd never had siblings close to my age and my mom was a bit of a tomboy, so it just never really came up in everyday life. I fantasized about inviting Sookie over to teach me some tricks, but I'd tried that before with friends in my old life and it never really worked out. Surprisingly, "Please God, teach me how to curl my hair without it looking like I'm going to the prom in the 80's!" was not most people's idea of a good time.

I used the mirror from my compact to try out the makeup a few times. The lipstick was really too red and I felt like I looked like my grandmother, so I wiped it off and re-applied with the more neutral shade that Q had left for me. The eyeliner was fun, though. I missed this part of my goth stage. I was more than tempted to do a little swirl at the end, but just settled for a thick line along the top and bottom. I wet the eye shadow a little and literally painted my entire eyelid with thick black.

I sat around in my bra and panties and watched a few reruns of CSI New York until it was 9 and I felt like it was late enough to arrive at Fangtasia and not seem too eager.

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks so much to everybody who has reviewed so far. I'm eternally (Vampire pun!) grateful for every single comment and nice message that I've been left. I'm trying to respond to every one with a PM; so, if you haven't gotten a reply, check your inbox or you don't have it allowed. If you have any questions, critiques, or suggestions, please feel free to leave those for me, too.

Author's Note #2: Molly's kind of a manic character with a complicated personality, so I put a mini-bio up on my profile. Let me know if there's anything not on there that you want to know.

Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: If You Could Kick The Person In The Pants Responsible For Most Of Your Trouble, You Wouldn't Sit For A Month

I waited pretty damn patiently to get in Fangtasia, in my opinion. Yes, I was tapping my foot and saying, "COME ON!" to the sky a lot, but there were so many pale kids dressed in black in front of me in line that I wondered who was manning the Twilight booth at Hot Topic if every goth kid in Louisiana was here. I felt relatively conservative in my green dress and coat compared to some of their more risque outfits. One girl was topless save for two black duct-taped X's on her breasts.

Two guys in black tees so tight that I could count the number of nipple rings between them, 7 by the way, were standing behind me and talking about Eric. I looked out across the parking lot and tried not to seem like I was listening to their conversation as we shuffled forward every few seconds.

Guy #1: "You can't go in there all aggressive like that."  
Guy #2: "I have to stand out. If I walk up to him without fear, he'll think of me as his equal."  
Guy #1: "You're not."  
Guy #2: "But he'll THINK I am. He'll probably turn me before the night's out. So, if we get separated, don't wait up."  
Guy #1: "Fuck that. This is the kind of shit the buddy system was made for. If you disappear, I'm going to start spraying everybody with SilverMace (TM) until they bring you back, dead or alive."  
Guy #2: "You brought SilverMace (TM) to a fucking vampire club? You're fucking retarded. You're going to get killed the final death long before I do."  
Guy #1: *pause* "YOU'RE retarded."  
Guy #2: "Good one. Burn."  
Guy #1: "I'm not the one who's going to try and suck the King of Straight Vampires' dick. Emphasis on try."  
Guy #2: "Oh, ye of little faith."

I turned back to the door and stifled a giggle. But, fuck it, stranger things had happened to me in the last 2 days; I figured Guy #2 had a chance. Besides, who knew how gay Eric could get? I was pretty sure I remembered that he'd done some anal stuff with Appius in the books. Or maybe that was a slash fic. They all blurred together. Anyway, vampires were all pretty much omni-sexual, so why not?

I was relieved to be up next when the girl in front of me moved forward and handed Pam her ID. The buckles and safety pins on her clothing jangled every time she took a breath and I was reminded why I didn't go goth anymore. I was just too old for this shit. After passing inspection, she went inside and I stepped forward with my driver's license ready to go.

Pam looked me up and down, glanced at the card she'd taken from me, and seemed satisfied at its authenticity. Thank God. She waved her hand towards the door and said in a completely monotone voice, "Stephanie Moyer, welcome to Fangtasia. The drinks are on us until 1 am, but then you'll owe us one. Scary laugh."

"Thanks." I was about to walk in when I had a second thought. I turned back to Pam and nodded to her black pumps. "Nice shoes, by the way."

She rolled her eyes, but almost smiled, and I figured I'd hit the mark with the standard Pam-style compliment. Fanfics did have their benefits.

When I entered Fangtasia, I was disappointed when I realized that I had been expecting something... bigger. Merlotte's had almost twice the room, but I figured that was because it was never this crowded with people or couches. I thought I'd remembered the club being darker too, but it was well-lit with Christmas lights and antique-looking lamps. Eric's throne was under a spotlight, but empty, so I felt pretty relieved and only a tiny bit disappointed. I was not here to meet him and play a rousing game of spot the True Blood character. I was here to find myself some action.

I went to the bar and waited my turn until Longshadow was available to serve me. "What do you want?"

Nice manners. I decided he really should hook up with Tara. They'd be perfect for each other. Well, she probably didn't need another doomed-to-die boyfriend, but still.

I had to shout a little to be heard over a techno-ish cover of "People Are Strange" that was blaring from speakers on each side of the bar. "SPRITE AND VODKA, PLEASE." The entire 2-hour ride here had been a lot of self-lecturing about not getting drunk and fucking up my evening, but I knew it would look too newbish if I sat there with a fucking plain soda. I'd sip it slowly, have total control over my faculties and be fine.

After he set the drink in front of me and left me to serve other customers, I turned around at the counter and scouted for seating. There was an empty couch in the corner that wasn't surrounded by a lot of people, so I maneuvered myself as quickly as I could through the crowd to pounce on it.

It was a dreamy L-shaped sofa, with black leather cushions that I sank into. I scooted into the middle to have my back in the corner. In this position, I'd be able to see most of the club and I felt safer thinking that no one could sneak up on me.

Sipping my drink as I took in the scene, I saw that a lot of people were wearing black, but not all that many were in fully star-spangled regalia. There were even a few regular people hanging around the gift shop area that were dressed as if they were going on a trip to Wal-Mart, rather than a blood bar. Scattered around the room, a few vampires were speed-dancing around poles and had at least 10 people around each of them, stuffing tips into an empty beer pitcher. Vampire Go-Go dancers... I felt like now I'd seen it all.

The music changed and I almost squealed when I recognized it as the Genitorturers' song, "Asphyxia." I saw a very drunk girl stumble to the bar out of the corner of my eye and order another drink while she adjusted her corset to keep her breasts from spilling out. I figured I should keep an eye on her because she was just oozing foreshadowed drama. People-watching here was easily trumped Merlotte's and I made temporary plans to come here every fucking night of the week. The only thing funnier than watching people get drunk off their ass was watching high-heeled, horny people get drunk off their ass.

I lip-synced along to Gen and watched the girl as she returned to her post in front of one of the male vampires and immediately start shouting at him as she waved a twenty in front of his face. As fast as you could blink, he swooped in on her and flashed his fangs in her face, to which she replied with a scream and a whoop before throwing the bill in his bucket.

When my song ended, the opening to "Control" came on over the stereo and I couldn't help but roll my eyes. It was going to be on for 6 fucking minutes and I realized then that I was in for a long evening.

About 4 minutes in, I was ready to leave. Or bang my head against the wall until I passed out. Surely one of the two. But, mercifully, the song suddenly cut off in mid-fucking-people-like-animals and "(S)aint" began blasting over the speakers. Everyone in the bar started applauding, which I thought was a little overdramatic of a reception for Marilyn Manson. But then at least half of the crowd moved away from their dancing idols and surrounded the throne stage. I guessed Eric had arrived.

I scooted to the edge of the bench and peered around a column at the corner of the wall so I could see him better. He waved a little like he was a bored pageant queen and some people were even kneeling. I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. It was all too much.

But, despite the initial burst of excitement from being in the same room as Alexander Skarsgard, I was left with an entirely underwhelming feeling of "meh." You see, I'm not an Eric!Girl.

I mean, he's a pretty interesting character, like all anti-heroes. Just completely not my type. He had the looks of an emotionally-aloof surfer dude rather than a warrior/viking/supposed sex god. I liked my guys tall, dark and sweet. Lumberjacks with hearts of gold. Nerds with glasses. Clark Kent. And Eric was just so... pretty. Like a girl. Like a fucking GAP model. And I wasn't into it.

Besides, he was a self-important, cold-hearted, manipulative asshole. And I'd had more than enough of those to last a lifetime.

The guy I lost my cherry to was exactly like him, right down to the huge dick, angelic blond hair and personality issues. Well, technically, I lost it to a purple Canadian vibrator that I'd bought at Clifton Hill when I was 14. Nevertheless, he was definitely the first person I'd had sex with, if drunken, half-hearted muff munching didn't count.

I had been 19 and built up the thought of my first time to the point of neurotic dread, so I decided that I just wanted to get it over with. All the girls I'd known who had sex always had one of two reactions to their first times: obsessive love or disappointment. Neither of those sounded like fun options, so I hand-picked a guy from OKCupid like I was choosing produce at the supermarket.

He was 20 and had an 8" dick (which turned out not to be an exaggeration, for the record), gorgeous gay porn-style looks, and experience. Despite being exactly the type of guy I would never have gotten in real life on my best day, he was more than willing to take me out on my first test drive because he'd never fucked a virgin before. I don't think the fact that I had big tits hurt, but it was mostly for the cherry-picking.

We talked on AIM for a month before we met and I knew he was perfect for the job because he was willing to show up with an ID, an STD check, and I really didn't like his personality. There was no risk of falling in love with him when he acted like he was God's gift to women and told me I was lucky to have the chance to fuck him.

But he did talk dirty like a pro and, when we met at a Holiday Inn, he backed it up in real life. I'm not gonna lie, the sex was AMAZING. And, as soon as it was over, I kicked him out and knew that I would look back on this moment when I was 80 like I'd made the right decision.

Of course, like all of my excellent life choices, I did wind up regretting it a few years later when I actually had sex with a guy I loved. I don't want to get all after-school-special on you or anything, but mindless sex is like a good massage from a stranger and romantic sex is like a really good session with your psychiatrist. One's temporary relief and the other will change your life for the better.

Still, it was a damn good massage. And, if I hadn't fucked a random, I might've been way too nervous to ever let myself open up with anyone- literally or metaphorically. I might've wound up the 40-year-old virgin and who knows what kind of sexually-repressed monster I'd be right now.

Even though I was here for a bang, not a relationship, and I had no doubt Eric would be a great masseur, I just didn't like the guy enough for a few extra inches hitting my cervix to be worth getting sucked into his mind games. He seemed like the kind of sadistic bastard who couldn't cum unless he was making me love him and then dumping me.

Suddenly, I heard and felt a thick Spanish accent whisper in my ear, "I have never seen anyone stare at him like that before."

I jumped a little in shock and spun around to find that someone had taken the corner seat I'd vacated when I wasn't looking. He was very tan with an army-style crew cut, muscled, and reminded me of Oscar De La Hoya. He wore a dark blue, fuzzy, turtle-neck sweater, brown trousers and was drinking a TruBlood. I figured I had a 97% chance he was a vampire. Despite the weird fashion sense, I could do worse. If I turned my head at the right angle and put a pair of glasses on him, he could play the part of my Mexican Clark Kent.

With my back to Eric, I grinned at my new friend and crossed my legs. "I'm sure all of you have plenty of women staring at any given moment."

He slid down the couch closer to me and put his arm behind me on the back of the seat. "There are not very many that look at him like you were. You seem very angry. Did he make my night easier by turning you down?"

I rolled my eyes, but kept a friendly smile on my face. "Please. He wishes. I'm not angry, just unimpressed. I honestly don't get what everyone sees in him."

He did a hissing laugh at that and it sounded like Muttley from Wacky Races. Note to self: no more jokes. I didn't want to hear that noise ever again. "Don't let him hear you say that." He leaned forward towards me and leered. "The vampires here bite, you know."

I raised a cocky eyebrow towards the ceiling and smirked. "Ya don't say! Let me guess. Next you're going to tell me I should run straight to Grandma's house and not pass go or collect $200?"

"Well, if you feel like telling me what big teeth I have," he popped his fangs out, "I will only take it as a compliment."

At least he was good at talking shit. I was starting to like this guy. I didn't want to make him think I was all bark and no love though, so I put my hand on his knee as my gaze gravitated towards his teeth. I'd always wanted to see fangs in real life. It was interesting how close together they were and not placed over his canines like I preferred vampires to have them. Still, they were "Impressive."

He took my chin in his hand and tilted my face up and away from his mouth. He had gorgeous, dark chocolate eyes. "Tell me your name, beautiful."

His touch was cool on my warm skin and distracting. I had to force myself to remember not to say Molly, or even Anna. I was using one of my alternate IDs so that, if I had to fuck and run, the vampire I hoped to hook up with wouldn't be able to track me down. "Stephanie. What's yours?"

"I am Bartolomeo." He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it in a gentlemanly way, but it was pretty corny. Still, it was a sweet gesture and it worked for me. "Tell me your age, my lovely Stephanie."

No matter how much I liked him, I wanted to try to play confident and hard to get. "It's not very polite to ask a girl her age."

He frowned for only a split-second, but then quickly recovered his fanged leer. "I'm not a very polite man. Tell me your age." Bartolomeo was staring deeply into my eyes and I did my best not to swoon.

"I-I'm," I cleared my throat and got myself together. "I'm 26."

He scanned my body up and down, then leered at me in a not-so-romantic way. "I have never been with a woman like you before..." His smile faded a little and his expression grew serious. "We should get out of here and take a walk..."

"Really!" I harumphed. I was more than willing to hook up with almost any vampire here, but I wasn't THAT easy. He hadn't even bought me a drink yet, so I was a little insulted by how fast he thought he could get me to go off with him. "Thanks, but no thanks. I really don't feel like going down a dark alleyway with a stranger, sorry."

He frowned, shook his head, and drained the last half of his TruBlood in a long gulp. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and took a deep breath before taking both of my hands in his and staring into my eyes again. "Don't worry... Relax... You can trust me... I'm perfect for you... I remind you of your father..."

"What? What does that even mean?" I couldn't stop myself from laughing. Who even thinks a line like that is going to work? No, this guy was not the one. He wasn't even worth a pity fuck.

But Bartolomeo was angry now. His grip on my fingers started to tighten and I whimpered from the pain. "Why isn't this working?" He looked around the club for a moment then dropped his voice to a whisper. "Are you a demon?"

My jaw fell open and I finally realized what he'd been trying to do when he was looking into my eyes. And that it hadn't worked. I hissed at him quietly, "Please tell me you weren't trying to glamour me!"

He glared at me and I tried to pull away, but it was if my hands were encased in concrete. "Tell me what you are right now!"

"Look, buddy..." I kept trying to wrench myself free. "I'm sorry your shit is weak, but it's not MY fault if you can't get it up."

"I am not impotent, demon!"

I glanced around the room for help, but not even Eric had taken an interest in our fight. I assumed we just looked like we were just a vampire and his fangbanger holding hands. I started to panic when I realized how screwed I was. Of course I was immune to their magic. I wasn't technically a human from their universe. I was an alien. This was getting way too dangerous, way too fast. I was going to wind up getting autopsied in the vampire version of Area 51 if I didn't figure out a way to get out of there now.

Figuring I could catch more flies with honey, I stopped struggling and I used my free thumbs to pet his knuckles. "I'm NOT a demon, darling. Let's just calm down and relax a little. There must be some reason your glamour isn't working on me." Quick, Molly! Think! Couldn't say I was a fairy. Mermaid? Elf? Shit! Think of some non-magical creature that isn't human! There had to be some explanation why he couldn't look into my eyes and make me do what he wanted!

His grip on my hands eased, but he continued to glare at me. "Do you have brain damage?"

Maybe? Maybe I was dropped on my head as a baby and it broke something? Suddenly, the spotlight of Hallelujah reappeared above me as I came up with an idea. "I'm blind!"

Bartolomeo's eyes flashed in anger, "You are not! DON'T LIE TO ME!" But I could see the gears turning in his head as he pondered the idea.

I gulped and tried to look scared, which I managed pretty easily because I was terrified out of my wits. "No! Not totally blind... I mean, I can see shapes and all. But I'm legally blind. Can't even drive. I've been this way since I was 6 when my older brother sprayed paint in my eyes." Details always helped with a lie and I'd read a book in school where that had happened to some kid, so I figured it was worth a shot. "I swear! Please, believe me! I really like you!"

He peered into my eyes for a few moments, then nodded and released my hands to my relief. "Yes, of course. I believe you. I can see the scars on your irises." There were scars on my irises? Whatever. At least he was buying it, so I let out a sigh in relief. "I'm sorry if I scared you. I've never met a blind girl before. I honestly thought you were a supe of some sort, but you don't smell much different than most humans." He wheezed again and I suppressed a grimace at the sound. "It was very ignorant of me."

Thank God. But now I needed to figure out a way to get out of there without him noticing. So much for my hopes of getting laid tonight.

I turned up my flirt powers to DEFCON 1 and batted my eyelashes at him shyly. "I've never met a vampire before, either... You're... You're my first... I didn't know it would be like this."

He held my face in his hand and grazed a cool thumb over my cheekbone. "Oh, Stephanie... Please, give me a second chance to show you that I can be a gentleman."

"I would love to." I turned my head and kissed the inside of his palm. "You know, even without the glamour, I just think you're plain super. You're so handsome and classy... you remind me of Spanish royalty."

If vampires could blush, Bartolomeo would've. I was pouring it on thick, but so was he, so fuck it. "And you are the sweetest flower in this entire room." Ugh. No wonder he needed to glamour all his women. He leaned into my neck and nuzzled my jaw while he inhaled deeply. "You smell like a campfire on a winter's evening..."

I giggled, and then pushed him away gently. "I would love nothing more than to just sit here and be with you, Bartolomeo. Your words are like Shakespeare. But I need to use the restroom. You know, human needs."

His laughter wheezed again and he stood up with his hand held out to help me up from the couch. "I understand, dear. But parting is truly the sweetest sorrow."

When I was standing next to him, he was a little bit taller than me and I wrapped my arms around his neck before pressing my body against his. "How about you get me another drink and, when I come back, we can sit and talk and... get to know each other." I winked playfully so he knew for sure that I was coming onto him.

He groaned as I rubbed against him and dropped a kiss on my shoulder. "That sounds like a perfect evening, gorgeous. What are you drinking?"

I pulled away and ran my hands down his arms before giving his hands a squeeze. "Sprite and Vodka. Be right here when I get back, okay? I don't want to lose you."

"I promise I will be here when you return," he picked up my near-full glass and his empty bottle and shook them a little, "With fresh delights."

"Sounds perfect. Right here. I'll hurry!" I scanned the room for the hallway to the bathroom. I could see it on the far side of the club, near Eric's throne. I turned back to Bartolomeo and giggled again, trying to look as 'Duh!' stupid as I could. "Which way is the restroom?"

He gripped my shoulders and pointed my body in the right direction. "Just keep walking straight, to the opposite wall."

"Thanks."

I crossed the room as quickly as I was willing to, but bumped into a chair or two here and there so that I could keep up my blind routine. As soon as I turned the corner and was out of his sight, I ran into the bathroom and was distraught to find it had no windows. I checked all the open stalls and came up empty. I was trapped.

But I wasn't going to go down without a fight. I didn't have much time and I needed to escape, NOW. I figured there had to be some back way out of there.

I opened the door to leave and ran into a girl as she was coming in. I said, "Sorry," but I had barely got the word out when everything started happening in slow motion.

First, I recognized it was the drunk girl I'd been watching earlier.

Then I noticed her hand clamped over her mouth.

I was formulating the thought of, "Oh, shit, she's going to puke," when a hose of cream-colored liquid began spewing out from between her fingertips and above and below her hand. The only thing that covering her mouth had done was make it come out more forcefully as it sprayed in every direction it could.

I was covered from head to toe in a fine speckling of vomit.

To her credit, she turned around almost as soon as it started and finished in the sink, but the damage had been done. I had been puke-misted. I grabbed some paper towels and patted my face and clothes as dry, but the smell of alcohol and stomach acid wasn't going away anytime soon and I still needed to escape. I ran my hand through my hair and thanked her sarcastically for making my night harder than it already was, then ran out of the room.

I turned in the opposite direction of the music and went further down the small hallway, trying every door as I went. The first was a janitor's closet, also windowless, so no help there. After that, two locked doors, but, at the very end of the hallway, I found a fire exit. There was freedom on the other side.

Still, I worried that it might have an alarm. I was too scared to open it and wind up alerting everyone to my presence.

I backtracked to the club and hoped that Bartolomeo might be standing at the bar and I could somehow get past him and out the front. I opened my compact mirror and held it out the doorway to see the main room, but, to my dismay, he was waiting with fresh drinks at the couch where we'd been sitting. And he was talking to Eric, who was standing there with his arms crossed and looking pissed. Or bored. Technically, all of his emotions appeared to be shades of boredom to me, but I was pretty sure this was what angry-bored looked like. I quickly pulled the mirror back and stuffed it in my purse.

Shit. There was no choice, then. I had to get out of there NOW. I ran back down the hallway and quickly checked the edges of the fire exit for wires. I figured I could cut them and maybe get out quietly, but I couldn't find any. I was surprised when I heard knocking coming from the other side of the door.

I held my breath and pushed on the handle. No alarm sounded, but, as soon as it unlatched, someone opened the door so quickly that I fell forward onto the ground.

Three girls smoking black cigarettes and a guy in a white wifebeater and black jeans were standing above me, laughing. One of the girls took my arm by the elbow and started to help me up, but then dropped me. "Gross! What is that?"

I stood under my own strength and brushed my knees off, overall fine save for a skinned knee. "Somebody puked on me. I'm fine, though. Thanks for asking."

She scoffed and they headed in the door I'd exited from, but the guy stayed behind and bent down to put an empty pack of Djarm's in the doorway. "Leave this here, alright? It locks you out when you close it."

"Yeah. Thanks." I was saved by a smoker's alley. Of course. God bless 'em.

I limped to my truck in the parking lot and, when I drove away, I was careful to leave slowly. As soon as I was a few buildings away, though, I put the pedal to the metal and raced towards the interstate. I assumed Pam, Eric, and Bartolomeo were following me, so I kept glancing in my rear-view mirror and at the sky. I'd wanted drama, danger and excitement and I got it. Just super. I was in a medium-speed car chase Thelma and Louise-style with a bunch of vampires.

I reached I-20 and calmed down enough to ease back my speed to about 5 miles over the limit. I was pretty sure if they were following me that they'd have caught up by now, but I decided I'd head west towards Texas to throw them off my trail.

Fuck, I was an idiot. I figured my autobiography should be retitled from "Come True" to "Stupid, Stupid Bitch." This is exactly what Sam had warned me about. He told me to stay out of trouble and I ran directly into a pile of it. I sniffed my dress and opened the window to air out the cab of the truck. I had been fucking MISTED in trouble.

Double-fuck. I forgot to get a Fangtasia T-shirt.

* * *

Author's Note: Comments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!

Author's Note #2: Oh, but Eric lovers? Relax. I like him, my character just doesn't. We'll deal with it later.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine: Life Is An Onion, And One Peels It Crying

Pam smelled the girl before she saw Stephanie Moyer shuffling out of the narrow alley behind Fangtasia. She didn't know why Stephanie had taken the back exit, but the odor of vomit left her none too eager to follow up on it. When she felt Eric calling, Pam ran to the back office in a blur of black and blond.

A baby vamp, one that they'd been suffering from for too long, sat in a chair in the middle of the room. Eric held him down with one hand on Bartolomeo's shoulder in case he tried to run. She really hoped he would. Maybe he'd trip and fall on a strategically placed piece of wood. It would look like an accident and they'd all be better off. "Let's make this quick. What did he do now?"

"Tell her what you told me, Barto." Eric seemed upset and Pam was more than annoyed by the fact that Bartolomeo was already fucking up again on his second night out of the basement.

After being kicked out of Texas, he'd pledged fealty to the Queen, who promptly passed him off to her and Eric. On his first night in Fangtasia, Bartolomeo had glamoured and drained two Mexican girls in the back alley. To add insult to injury, he'd just left the bodies there without a word to anyone. Luckily, it was Ginger who found them and not one of their human customers, but Eric was still pissed enough to chain him in silver for two weeks without feeding. Pam had found it far too lenient of a punishment. You can just guess who had to ruin their vintage Ferragamo's when she disposed of the leftovers in the swamp.

"She said she was just going to the bathroom! I don't know where she went!" He sobbed and she was glad vampires couldn't shit their pants like disgusting little humans.

Eric dug his fingernails into Bartolomeo's shoulder and Pam made a noise of pleasure when she heard the bone crack. "Not that. Tell her why you couldn't control your human."

She raised an eyebrow in interest. Even relatively weak from blood loss, he'd had a night to recuperate with a keg of TruBlood and shouldn't have had a problem carrying out a simple thrall.

"How was I supposed to know we can't glamour blind people? No one told me that!"

The humans had learned not to look vampires in the eyes, but she didn't even think of those who couldn't see. Pam had never had any reason to be around a blind person before. She usually liked her prey to see her coming so they could try to run. Barto's story made sense, but then Eric surely would've told her about this before now. "Är det ens möjligt?" _Is that even possible?_

He shook his head. "Vi behöver bara deras ögon att skriva in sina sinne. Det spelar ingen roll om de inte kan se oss, så länge vi kan se dem." _We only need their eyes to enter their mind. It doesn't matter if they can't see us, as long as we can see them. _

Pam scoffed and adjusted her clothing absent-mindedly. She felt self-conscious for even thinking, however momentarily, that Eric would know something like that and hadn't told her. "Of course. So who was she?"

When Bartolomeo tried to answer, Eric squeezed his shoulder again and he let out a small scream in pain. "This one was hiding her from me in the corner. I never saw her face. Brunette. Caucasian. Black jacket, green dress."

"St-Stephanie!"

It was too bad. That one had seemed like she wouldn't be any trouble. Pam supposed this is why you could never get attached to puppies; they always had a short shelf life. "Stephanie Moyer, 22. 5171 Northeast Road, Monroe, 71203. 84G 9AQ. I saw her drive away less than five minutes ago. Do you want me to go after her?"

Eric drummed his fingertips on his captive's shoulders while he thought for a moment. "Nej. Skicka Ruben. Säg till honom att jag vill ha henne levande." _No. Call Ruben. Tell him I want her alive._

"Hon luktade som en kvinna till mig, Eric. Tror du att de har listat ut ett sätt att stoppa oss från att styra deras tankar? Någon form av nya läkemedel?" _She smelled like a human to me, Eric. Do you think they have figured out some way to stop us from hypnotizing them? Maybe some sort of new drug?_

"Jag vet inte. Men jag ska ta reda på." _I don't know. But I'm going to find out. _

Bartolomeo started rocking in his chair, growing frustrated by the conversation going on around him that he couldn't understand. "What's going on? Speak English! You are supposed to speak English in America!"

Pam's fangs clicked out and she glared at him. "Fine. A quick recap for those of you just tuning in. You're an idiot. Your little girlfriend is NOT blind. And since you let her escape, we have to go and get her."

Bartolomeo laughed a little, a nervous wheezing sound that echoed in the quiet room. "You don't know what you're talking about! She IS blind! I saw the scars in her eyes!"

Pam was sure that, if the girl had damaged eyes, she'd have noticed that. She glared at him for a few seconds before arriving at a reasonable explanation. Grabbing Bartolomeo's head in her hands, she forced him to look at her.

At first he struggled to resist, but eventually he had no choice but to look in Pam's eyes. "Hey! You've got them, too! Little lines coming out from your pupils!"

Eric raised his eyebrow in a question to Pam, and she looked skyward while holding her arms out like she was being crucified. She wondered why she was cursed to spend eternity surrounded by idiots. "Barto, tell Eric how many white girls you've glamoured since you've been vampire."

"You know that I just arrived in this country a few weeks ago!"

"HOW MANY?" Eric's hand was wrapped around his throat and Bartolomeo shivered in fear. He felt very vulnerable to decapitation in Eric's grip.

"SHE WAS MY FIRST!"

Pam crossed her arms, a smug look on her face. "Mystery solved. The idiot has never seen light-colored eyes before. You're welcome." She turned away and pulled her phone out of her purse, quickly texting Ruben the girl's address and directions to collect her unharmed.

Bartolomeo looked back and forth between the two vampires, a confused expression on his face. "So... she's not blind?"

Pam's teeth were grinding against each other and she realized that the boy was either going to have to die or they were going to have to hire a babysitter to deal with this shit. "Låt mig döda honom, Eric. Han är alldeles för utvecklingsstörda att leva." _Let me kill him, Eric. He's too stupid to live. _

Eric released his grip on Barto's throat and appeared in the wingback chair behind his desk. "Låt honom gå ikväll, men bli av med honom innan morgonen. Helst långt bort från fastigheten." _Let him leave tonight, but get rid of him before morning. Preferably far away from the property._

Satisfied by the idea of her future revenge, Pam's fangs retracted and she smiled, genuinely, as she patted Bartolomeo on the head. "Don't be scared, little one. Everything will be fine by tomorrow night. Eric will get your human."

Bartolomeo relaxed in his chair and then turned to Eric hopefully. "Really? No basement?"

"No basement. You're free to go. But, please, be good. Or we'll be seeing you again."

With the threat hanging in the air, he ran out of the office before Pam and Eric changed their minds.

Pam couldn't wait to have Bartolomeo strapped down to a table and disemboweled. She pondered calling her fuck buddy Taryn who was as excellent with a silver knife as she was in bed. On Eric's orders, they only had until morning, but Taryn would make the time worthwhile, she was sure. She was exiting the office, head in the clouds, when she heard her maker call her name.

"Pamela." Eric's voice was even, but held a warning, and she immediately froze in her steps and turned around to face him. "Do not forget to order some more of those blood-flavored condoms. The gift shop's nearly sold out."

* * *

I kept driving until morning. I only had to stop once for gas, but I filled up quickly and threw 3 twenties at the cashier just so I could get back on the road as soon as possible. It was a little past Fort Worth, when the sun was officially above the horizon, that I finally felt a little bit safe. I was exhausted, but safe.

After taking an exit that promised a McDonald's and scarfing down some breakfast burritos and hash browns since I hadn't eaten all night, I tried to catch a few hours nap in the parking lot. But the discomfort of my clothing wouldn't allow me to sleep for long. I'd done my best to ignore it, but, every time I turned to my side, I could feel the crunch of my dress and was confronted by its stench. So I wound up back on the road again by 10 am.

I had been terrified for most of the ride to Texas, so, on my way home, I tried to enjoy my impromptu road trip as much as possible. But Texas was really just... underwhelming. Granted, I'd barely gotten out of the car, but it was just another state. It didn't look much different than Florida or Louisiana from I-20.

Just before I crossed the state line, I pulled over for gas and used the station's automatic car wash for a fresh start. I figured since I had to drive past Shreveport to get back to Bon Temps, maybe it'd help to keep my smell off the highway so that the vampires couldn't track me. I even bought like 4 of those little pine tree air fresheners and rubbed them all over my body, Tommy Boy-style. I also hung one in each window and the rear-view mirror.

I knew I'd never be able to go back to the city again, let alone Fangtasia. I had no doubt that Bartolomeo, if not the whole fang squad, was after me. I'd been lucky to get out of there alive. The blind shtick had worked on the relatively young and stupid vampire, but Eric would have seen right through my shitty lies. I wasn't diabolical enough for this shit. I didn't want to think three moves ahead. I wasn't good at chess. I was good at causing drama and then watching to see what happened.

I felt like I was Light Yagami from Death Note, if he were retarded. I'd have gotten the notebook, killed maybe four criminals, and then been caught by L immediately. No, fuck that, I would've been busted by some cop on the beat. My series would've ended on like episode 3.

I just wasn't a good liar. It was all too hard. I didn't want to be a major character in the show anymore. It was all Q's fault for making me a broken human. I could no longer play tourist with this giant target on my back. The only reason Sookie had survived being different was because she was Bill's and, sort of, Sophie-Anne's. Me? I was vampire bait, without even the benefit of being able to read minds.

It was close to 6 pm when I finally arrived home, and found a note on my door.

"Anna-

Need to talk. Call me as soon as you get home.

-Sam Merlotte

318-792-1814"

I tore it down and stuffed the letter in my purse, promising myself I'd deal with it later. But not now, Sam. Not now.

The sun was hanging low enough in the sky to make me nervous about the upcoming evening, so I quickly entered my house and locked everything up. My stomach reminded me that I was starving, so I took out a couple pizzas from the freezer and heated them up one at a time. I ate the first one before the next even finished cooking. I counted in my head and figured that I hadn't eaten anything but those breakfast burritos in almost 24 hours.

With a slightly fuller stomach, my smell and hygiene were truly unbearable and I couldn't wait any longer to take a bath. Fuck that, I'd take one of those knife showers again if I had to. As it was, I was ready to scrub off at least the top three layers of my skin with a Brillo pad just to feel clean again.

I took the second pizza in with me to the bath. As soon as the tub was filled- no bubbles this time, I didn't deserve them- I got in and sunk to the bottom.

Fuck breathing, for now. I just wanted to stay there, away from the noise and the smells and simply be alone. Underneath the water, it felt like I wasn't in Bon Temps anymore, that I didn't exist for a few moments. I could keep myself from thinking if only for a little while. As the sun set outside the bathroom, I forced myself to stay submerged as long as I could.

* * *

When Eric rose for the night, he crushed the phone in his hand after he read the text message from Ruben. The address on Stephanie's license had been a fake. One of his cops had tracked her license plate to Fort Worth, but then lost her, and there was no record of a Stephanie Moyer who matched her description in either state.

The girl was becoming more troublesome by the minute. Eric knew that he would find her, eventually. He just had to be patient. But he was starting to doubt that she was a human with some new technological means against their race. It seemed more likely that she had to be a supe of some sort if she were evading capture so well.

But he didn't really care. It was a win-win situation for him. Either she was a mystical creature that he'd have for his very own or he'd kill her and there'd be one less bothersome human.

* * *

At some point after washing my hair and finishing my pizza, I'd fallen asleep in the tub. It'd had to have been a long-ish nap, because, when I woke up, the water had turned cold. I was shivering so badly that I lurched out of the bath and threw up black in the toilet. That didn't seem healthy, but I was still so tired that I ignored it and just wrapped my hair and body in towels and stumbled to bed.

I could see out the window that it had gotten dark and my internal monologue reminded me that I was supposed to be afraid. If the vampires were coming for me, it'd be now.

God, this was all sooo fucked up. Like really, REALLY fucked up. More than all the other times it was fucked up. This was like two fuck ups had a fuckup baby and then that baby shit fuck up all over me.

I finally understood why Sookie was always so pissed all the time. I'd always thought she was just a whiner who couldn't let go and enjoy herself. I mean, I had previously been jealous of all the adventures she went on, but I was quickly realizing that living life on the run wasn't like on TV. It wasn't a fun feeling like playing Hide and Go Seek and having your adrenaline pumping as you out-smarted whoever was It. This wasn't a game. This was for keeps.

And it was just downright terrifying.

I was a bunny rabbit in a forest full of wolves and I never felt more powerless. My badass personality was not going to be enough to fend off creatures of the night. I needed to learn kung-fu. Or at least archery. Hell, I needed a restart button.

I felt a sob bubbling up in my throat and swallowed it back down. I didn't fear death, but I was starting to fear life. Maybe this wasn't a dream that had come true. Maybe this was hell. A punishment for living a selfish life. Maybe it's what I deserved.

I didn't want to think about it anymore. I was utterly depressed. So I ran away to where I wouldn't have to think, to sleep. A safe place.

Of course, my dreams were worse than my reality. I wound up having nightmares the entire night. I imagined being chained to the wheel in Fangtasia's evil basement and having to use that disgusting little bathroom while the other prisoners laughed. Every day, Eric or Pam would come down and ask me, "What are you?" And I would scream, "I'M A HUMAN!" Then they would cut off one of my body parts and eat them. All ten fingers, then all ten toes, then my arms, and then my legs. Someone would say, "She's lying. She knows she's not human."

After all my limbs were gone and I was nothing but a head and torso, Eric held a hacksaw to one of my breasts and I felt him start to cut into it. I felt it like it was really happening and I started screaming until my throat started to hurt when my eyes snapped open.

The morning sun was pouring in through the window and the alarm clock on my nightstand said it was a little after 7. I was glad to be awake and in a lit room where monsters couldn't exist. Hell, with dreams like that, I felt like never going to sleep again. I didn't want to re-live that fear.

Whenever I had bad dreams, I usually felt better talking about them, but I realized that I had no one to turn to. I needed a hug and I decided that I just couldn't stand to be alone right now. Before I could stop myself, I was up and out of bed. I pulled on my track pants and gray shirt from the day before that were on the floor of the bathroom and didn't even bother with underwear before I slipped on my sandals. I jumped in my truck and drove straight to Merlotte's. I knew Sam would be there for me. I would tell him everything and he'd hold me while I cried and help me figure a way out of this jam. He hated vampires more than anyone.

I barely remember the drive. I certainly don't remember parking or knocking on Sam's door. To me, it felt like I'd practically teleported out of my house and onto Sam's porch where I was standing awkwardly, face-to-face with Tara.

My mouth opened and closed like a dying fish and I felt like an idiot as she walked out onto the porch and closed the door behind her quietly. "You're Anna, right?"

I nodded dumbly in response, shocked.

She scratched her arm and looked around the parking lot to see if anyone else was around. "You're looking for Sam?"

Another nod.

"He's asleep right now. I just came over to drop some things off. For the bar."

"Of course." Fucking Tara. I hated her in that moment. Couldn't she have just waited a day before needing some human companionship? "I'll just like... come back later... Let you get back to what you're doing."

She laughed and held up her keys. "No, I'm leaving. He's all yours."

I started backing up off the porch, stumbling on the steps again. "No. No. It's not important. I should go, actually. It's really early. I should've just called. I'm so stupid."

Tara followed me down the stairs and continued making her case, "Listen, I know what it looks like, but I swear to you it ain't like that."

Actually, you lying skank, it is. But nice try at covering it up. It's a fuck and run. I mean, who am I to judge as I'd just been attempting to do the same thing a little over 24 hours before. But, still. Sam. My Sam. My eyes started to water and I blinked them back. "I just... Gotta go."

I ran away from her and back to my truck, before driving home numbly. I hated life. It had taken my one ally from me. I really was alone. There was absolutely no one to turn to.

I couldn't take it anymore. My throat felt like it was closing up. Maybe it was because I was just so physically worn out from the last few days that I didn't have the strength to hold back my emotions, but I pulled off onto the side of the road and started weeping.

For the first time in years, I cried my little heart out. I hugged myself and rocked back and forth as I sobbed and screamed. My nose got stuffy and I blew it into the sleeve of my shirt, just so I could breathe and cry for a few minutes longer.

I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing. I chanted it to myself as I wailed. My stupid, hopeless little crush on Sam was doomed. I had no friends. Sure, I didn't really have any back home either, but I had my family. I had my mom. And I missed her so fucking bad. I thought of all the good moments that we'd had together and, all of a sudden, I couldn't remember any of the bad. It was all cooking Thanksgiving dinner and watching Jeopardy! together and her laughing at my jokes. And now I had nothing. I had absolutely nothing. I was just a girl, a truck, and a bag of money. That's all I was. There was no hope. There was nothing good in life. I had nothing.

Eventually, after about ten minutes of crying, you always reach a point where you've exhausted all your sadness. When I hit my cry-wall, I finally did remember one bad moment with my mother, but with new eyes. I'd been about 12 and riding my bike down the road, when the tire hit the curb and fell over, taking me with it. The speed I'd been going continued to propel me forward and I was dragged along the shale for about 10 feet. The pebbles had dug into my elbow and I'd never felt so much pain or seen so much blood in my life.

I couldn't move and my friend ran into the house to get my mom. I laid there on the side of the road, sobbing and screaming just like this. I remember looking up and seeing my mother stood in the doorway of our home, yelling at me to come in. I yelled back at her to come help me, and she said, "I'm in my socks! Get up and come in here!"

I hated her in that moment. I was her daughter and I was bleeding and needed help and she didn't want to get her socks dirty? I laid there in the road, staring up at the sky, and I was determined not to get up. I wanted to stay there until she realized that either she was going to come and get me or I was going to die on the side of the road. Then she'd have to tell people she let me die because she was in her fucking socks.

For the longest few seconds of my life, nothing happened. She didn't break. I did. I braced my elbow against my chest, used my working arm to lift the bicycle off my body and stood up with shaking legs. I walked across the yard and into the house, sniffling pathetically the entire way. When I made it home, she yelled at me not to drip blood on the carpet, and I yelled at her to be a better mom. She'd had to drive me to the ER to get four stitches that day. And I had to wear a bandage for over a month.

It had really pissed me off at the time, but eventually I got over it and it became a funny story of what a shit mom she was. She always claimed that she didn't know how bad I'd been hurt.

But, today, I felt like I was getting the moral of that story. No matter how much everything was piling up on me, the physical pain was nowhere near what I'd felt when the rocks had dug into my elbow. And I'd been able to get up. My mom had taught me, without a spoonful of sugar, that I didn't need her around. That I could get up. And I would do it, all by myself.

I blew my nose again in my sleeve and wiped my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror. "As long as you can get up, you will, Molly. You are a badass. You are not tears. You are survival. Fuck everybody else. All you need is yourself."

I drove home and got into my trailer, feeling a little sad but pretty much okay. It was all going to be okay. I had hope, which is what I hadn't started out with. It was probably a good idea that I'd found Tara instead of Sam, anyways. I was ready to tell him everything. She probably saved me a lot of trouble.

But I felt stupid for letting her surprise me. How could I have forgotten that she was going to be there? I was the fucking Queen of True Blood trivia and I couldn't remember that this was the morning after Sam and Tara's first fuck?

It wouldn't help to start letting things slip like this. I needed to regain control over this world. I could be Light Yagami, if I just relaxed and didn't panic. I could rule this universe as long as I had my memories and didn't let them slip away. I just needed to write down everything I remembered while I still could.

I grabbed one of the blank spiral notebooks, sat down on the living room couch and started jotting down the title of each episode from every season of True Blood, then their synopses. The easiest thing to do was remember the moments they ended and began with and fit everything else in between.

I wrote furiously for the entire morning, never even turning on the TV as I tried to just recall everything I knew, which was a lot. I was constantly taking online quizzes and had re-watched the entire series so many times that it affected me with a Southern drawl for weeks afterward. It was as if I had spent the last four years of my life getting ready for this event. The True Blood Olympics, as it were. And I was on top of the situation and ready to represent!

But knowing the answers to questions and remembering every little moment were two different things. Season four was my weakest subject, followed by each season before it. I'd seen season one enough times to practically reproduce the scripts, but after that was a little difficult. I decided to try to recreate Dallas's timeline as well as I could.

If there were a patron saint of True Blood, I would've thanked it for giving me the website "Living Dead In Dallas." The girl who ran it had transcribed a continuity for all the events of the show and I had used it in enough debates with fangirl newbies that I was relatively familiar with it, at least the basics. Once I'd had the number of days in each season, it helped a lot as a frame of reference for the later seasons.

After I'd noted every scene and quote that I could think of, my mind started slowing down with details. I started to worry about what would happen if anyone found the notebook, so I re-wrote what I had with the identities changed to codenames based on color and burned the old pages in the kitchen sink. I named Sookie as White, Bill as brown, and Sam as blue. Lafayette was purple, Tara was black, Jason was red, Eric was gray, Pam was pink, Jessica was orange, and Hoyt was yellow because somebody had to be yellow. I made Sophie-Anne ivory for her pants suit and Russell was violet because he was violent. Andy was green, Terry was camo, and Arlene was maroon because she was sort of a moron. The last few didn't fit perfectly, but I was running out of colors and they sort of fit, so I just kinda went with it.

When my hand hurt so much that I couldn't do anymore, I ate a late lunch and watched some TV to try to restart my brain, but all I could think about was True Blood facts. And wonder what I might've been forgetting.

* * *

Author's Note: Comments/Compliments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten: Everything Is More Complicated Than It Looks To Most People

Sitting on the couch and staring at my spiral notebook as Guiding Light babbled on in the background, I had mixed feelings about what I'd done. I was happy that I'd had the ingenious plan of writing everything down in case I forgot it later, but I felt like an idiot for not thinking to do it sooner. My memories of True Blood just weren't as fresh in my mind as they might've been a few days ago. I was haunted by the idea that I might've forgotten one key piece of trivia and it was probably going to bite me in the ass later. The whole thing just oozed foreshadowed drama.

Besides that, though, I was terrified of how dangerous this information could be if it fell in the wrong hands. I wished I could trust my memory enough just to keep a mental map of the series, but I just couldn't. So now I was cursed to be the keeper and protector of The Book Of True Blood. I felt like Pandora. Or Frodo. Somebody who had way too much responsibility on their shoulders and was a moment away from snapping and ruining the entire world at any given moment.

So, okay, I knew I had to keep the book safe. And that meant I had to hide it. But the question was where could I put it? Sam had already proven that my trailer wasn't a vault. And my truck didn't seem like that much better of an option.

I remembered Death Note again and figured that I needed to think like Light Yagami and keep the notebook some place where I could destroy it if I were in danger of having it taken away from me. I wasn't smart enough to engineer something like he had- a desk drawer that was booby-trapped to burn his Death Note to ashes if someone tried to steal it- but I did have a gas oven. I figured that, if I were feeling threatened, I would just walk to the kitchen unassumingly and offer to make some tea or something. I'd flip the oven switch instead of turning the stove on, and poof! Fiery blaze of security!

Then again, I knew that (based on my life experience of being a bit of a firebug and the letter that I'd lit up in Merlotte's parking lot) paper didn't burn quickly. In fact, I was almost positive that I remembered Light had used a special flame or fuel or something in order to flash-fry his Death Note. Even if I had enough time to turn the oven on, a vampire or a were might be able to smell it burning and save the book well before the edges were even scorched.

I needed another plan, so I assessed the other appliances in the kitchen and settled on the dishwasher as a possibility. If I had enough time to turn it on, the water would be able to blur the ink and leave it an indistinguishable mess. It also seemed like somewhere that people wouldn't necessarily think of as a hiding place. I was happy to find that my True Blood journal fit so well into a little niche in the dishwasher's roof that I couldn't even see it unless I were on my hands and knees.

I was figuring this strategy would work well until I came up with something better and throwing in a couple of old coffee mugs that the last tenant had left behind to disguise the whole area, when someone came knocking on my door. More like pounding, actually. I wasn't expecting visitors, so I peeked out the living room window to see who was outside and was surprised to find that Sam was standing on my little porch.

I whispered to myself, "Oh, God. Not now." I was still pissed enough at him to not want to open the door right away. I knew I shouldn't have been upset, but I have radical emotions that sometimes don't follow normal logic. I mean, yes, he fucked Tara, but it was an integral part of their storyline and it had to be done. And I didn't have any claim on him anyways.

But it still hurt my feelings.

Before I could turn away from the window and pretend not to be home, he spotted me. "Let me in, Anna! NOW!"

I sighed and unlocked the deadbolt, standing behind the door as I pulled it open for him. "What do you want, Sam?"

He pulled the door out of my hands and slammed it shut, effectively removing it as a block between us. My mouth fell open in shock at how angry he seemed to be when, before I could react, he had me pushed against the wall with his forearm and started splashing a small bottle of water in my face. "This ends here!"

I wanted to react and fight him back, but he wasn't really attacking me. It was more like he was just dripping on me and I didn't really know how to react to that. After a few awkward moments of being dampened, I gawked at him in confusion and asked, "Uh... Whatcha doin', Sam?"

Disappointed that his plan or whatever he was trying to do wasn't working, he threw the bottle forcefully across the room and I watched as it bounced against the kitchen bar and fell to the floor. He kept me pinned to the wall and spat his words in my face, "I'm not going to let you keep killing people in my town!"

Okay, right. This was starting to make sense now. Dawn had died last night and he wasn't handling it well. I tried to speak slowly to him in an effort to calm his anger down a little. "Sam, I get it. I can imagine that you're pretty upset because your friend died last night. You feel like your life is spinning out of control and you're looking for someone to take it out on. But I'm not the killer just because I'm the new girl in town. You need to back up off me so we can discuss this like rational people."

Sam's eyes were wild and more than a little scary, but he released me and started pacing the room. I could tell that he was starting to acknowledge the possibility that I wasn't the killer and that he was probably doing a shitty attempt at water-boarding an innocent bystander, but he wasn't willing to let go of his suspicions of me that easily. "SOMEBODY is murdering innocent women, Anna. While they sleep. Right after they had sex. You trying to tell me that's a coincidence?"

I let out a half-laugh, half-scoff, and rubbed my collarbone where he'd been pressing down on it. It was more of a gesture to make him feel guilty than to rub any pain away, since he hadn't been pushing that hard. "Well, I sure as hell didn't do it! I barely knew Dawn and I never even met Maudette Pickens! Why would I kill them? That doesn't even make sense!"

"You're the only thing in this town that would've killed them like that!"

Okay, hold on a second. I felt like I was missing a really important piece of this puzzle. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"THIS!" He reached forward and pulled my t-shirt down, exposing my cleavage. I tried to pull away from him, but he had a firm grip on my collar and pointed at a strawberry mark near my sternum. "You didn't think I'd remember, but I do, Anna! I know exactly what you are!"

"Let me go!" I'd tried to keep a cool head until now, but I was never good at losing a fight. I made one more attempt at getting him to release my shirt, but, when he wouldn't loosen his hold on me, I saw red. I punched him in the stomach as hard as I could before stomping on his foot. He was bent over trying to catch his breath when I pulled my leg up and kneed him in the face. I tried to finish him off with a kick to the family jewels, but he had his legs closed tightly at this point and all I managed to do was stub my toe on his knees.

I hopped around on one foot, owing from the pain I'd inflicted on myself, as he put one hand on the couch to steady himself while holding his nose with the other. "JESUS CHRIST, ANNA!"

"Yeah, well… Don't fucking put your hands on me again, fucker! Sit your ass down and get your shit together! You're acting like a crazy person!"

He obediently took a seat on the couch and I went to the kitchen. My hand was slightly shaking from the adrenaline rush as I put some ice cubes in a Ziploc bag and then wrapped it in some paper towels.

I handed him the ice pack and joined him on the couch when, after we'd sat in silence for a few moments, I started to feel bad for hurting him. Well, I mostly felt bad for winning and remorse always came after a victory. Sympathy for the underdog was the American way and a major part of my personality. I nodded to Sam but couldn't force myself to look him in the eyes. "Alright. I'm sorry I punched you. And kicked you. I'm just not great at handling physical confrontations... I get really angry and start hitting before thinking. But that's no excuse for what I did."

"I've had worse."

I turned to face him, ready to yell at him for not apologizing back, but he had his head tilted back and was holding the bridge of his nose to stop it from bleeding. My anger died in my throat and I leaned over to grab some old McDonald's napkins from my purse.

He took them from me and sat upright in order to look me in the eye. "Why are you doing this?"

I crossed my arms indignantly and blew my bangs out of my face, getting frustrated that he was questioning the intent of my actions. "I hurt you, Sam, and I feel bad about it! I SAID I was sorry! Maybe you should take a lesson from me and do the same!"

"What do I have to apologize for? You're the one who-"

He didn't think he had anything to apologize for? Now I was pissed. "You practically break down my door, start accusing me of being a murderer, and then think you don't have to say sorry for pushing me around? Sookie and everybody else might feel just fine about getting man-handled, but I sure as hell won't stand for it."

"You've given me plenty of reason to suspect you and no reason why I shouldn't. You think if a succubus comes into my town and people start dying that I'm not gonna-"

"A SUCCUBUS?" It was almost cartoonish how big my eyes got at that. And then I started laughing. "That's what this is all about? You think I'm a SUCCUBUS?"

He glared at me for mocking him and got defensive. "Stop laughing! I read all about you after..." He waved his hand in the direction of my breasts. "You know!"

"No, I don't know!" I pulled the collar of my shirt away as I checked out the strawberry mark above my cleavage. "Is this 'The Mark of the Succubi' or something?"

When I pulled my face out of my shirt, he was opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water and seemed more than a little confused by my actions. "No! You... Because I had a... Hold on a second. Are you really telling me you don't know anything about this?"

I shook my head at him dumbly. "I can tell you in complete honesty that I have no fucking clue what you're talking about."

Sam scanned my face and body head to toe, then appeared slightly disappointed by what he'd found. "You're telling me you're just a regular human..."

"Yep." I wanted to stop there, but I still didn't want to lie to him. Technically, there was nothing regular about me, but that didn't mean I couldn't dodge the truth as much as I could. "Okay, sure, I've had different experiences than everybody else... But I'm a human. And not the killer." I patted his arm consolingly. "Sorry to disappoint you."

"Well..." He rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled self-consciously. "I guess that explains why the holy water didn't work."

"Holy water? Seriously?" I crossed the room and dug under one of the bar stools in the kitchen to get the bottle he'd thrown earlier. It was in the shape of the Virgin Mary and I handed it back to him. "Yeah, Sam. That shit's stupid. It doesn't even work on vampires. But I guess I am glad to know I'm not the spawn of Satan."

He stood up and put it in his back pocket. "Listen, now that I've embarrassed the shit out of myself, I'm just gonna go. I think I'll leave the detective work to the cops from now on."

No, that would be bad. If he didn't sniff Dawn's sheets or go out with Sookie to find Drew Marshall, that could lead to her death. No Sookie means no Sookie/Bill which means no True Blood. I grabbed his arm and smiled up at him, "No, Sam. Don't do that. Despite accusing me, I actually think you're the right for man for this job. I mean, we know the cops in this town don't exactly know how to handle this kind of thing. But like... use that bullshit-detecting nose that you have. I want to see your picture in the paper with the headline, 'Local Hero Busts Bad Guy.'"

He nodded seriously, "Maybe I should…"

I released his arm and walked to my front door so he could leave. "Go get 'em, Sam."

"Yeah, sorry again about all this..." As soon as he was out on the porch, he spun around at me. "But, wait, if you're not a Succubus, what's your big secret then?"

I laughed and shook my head and gently pushed him onto the first stair. "GO, Sam. I think you owe me at least a few days reprieve for this one."

He held onto the railing to keep me from pushing him down the steps, "I'm going to find out eventually, Anna, you might as well tell me now."

"That day is not this day." I slammed the door, locked the deadbolt, and collapsed on the couch.

I figured Sam was probably right. I was bound to be discovered. Secrets aren't meant to be kept. Everything comes out in the wash. And keeping a mystery like this was just making people guess incorrect things about me. First Bartolomeo was convinced I was a demon, and now Sam. Things were starting to get complicated.

But, really? A Succubus? I couldn't even imagine what made him think that. Maybe Succubi in this universe couldn't help but flash their chests to shape shifters. And holy water? I thought you were supposed to sing a song backwards at them or something. Suddenly I was all too aware that I didn't know anything about other creatures in this world. There might be mermaids. Elves. Zombies. Angels. Aliens. Anything that Alan Ball hadn't gotten to describing yet.

All I knew for sure was that I didn't really know anything.

* * *

Bill was worried when Eric had summoned him and his date to the stage, but he was wise enough not to allow the emotion to become apparent on his face. He did wish that Sookie hadn't worn a dress that showed off so much of her body, though. She looked beautiful, but he didn't like the attention she was getting for it.

He felt that dating, as awkward as it always was, had been easier in his past life. Maybe it was absence making his memories grow fond, but it seemed that, when all women dressed demurely and only their bed partners were able to see anything more than wrists and necks, it had been simpler in his time. Even though he could admit to himself that he'd found great voyeuristic pleasure over the years while watching the ever-shortening hems of skirts and the invention of bikinis, he was frustrated when it affected him directly like this.

Eric was sizing Sookie up as if he were preparing to own her, blood and body, right there on the dance floor, and Bill found that he didn't enjoy the feeling. Still, he suffered the Sheriff's obvious desire for her (as he was Bill's superior according to vampire law) but he had already decided that he would fight until the final death before he allowed Eric to go any further than looking. This was not only because of any fear he had of the Queen's wrath, but for his growing affection for Sookie. He found that he couldn't even stand the idea of seeing her with any other man but himself. And Eric, who was staring at her chest so wantonly, seemed all too eager to take her from him.

Sookie had been quickly and surely stealing his heart for a few days now. Her blond hair reminded him of his children and their innocence and frailty and it made him want to protect her. But her spirit, though... That was what he truly found attractive and intoxicating. He was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. She was odd and funny, but also strong and demanding. She was as tough as any woman in the post-Civil War era and he found himself admiring her for it more and more. He could trust that she'd handle herself well in the most difficult of situations, as she'd proven by how she'd adjusted well to life with powers like hers.

But, despite his confidence that she would rebuke Eric's attention and be able to resist his glamour, he was nervous enough about her fidelity to quickly claim Sookie as his own when his superior asked if they were in a committed relationship. He knew she would give him hell for it later; but he allowed himself to enjoy the feeling that, for now and at least in Eric's eyes, they were intimately bonded to one another.

The elation was altogether shortly lived though, when Sookie declared that Fangtasia was about to be raided by the authorities and inadvertently acknowledged her powers to the one person in the world whom Bill wanted not to know about her.

* * *

They stopped for a moment a few buildings away when Pam grabbed his arm. "What the hell was that?"

"I believe she's a telepath. A rare find. We're very lucky that she is in our jurisdiction."

"You mean Sophie-Anne's jurisdiction."

Eric glared down at Pam's hand that was still clutching onto him and she immediately released it. "We don't need to bother her with this. Not until we do our own personal investigation."

A relieved smile appeared on her face before instantly fading away again. "It seems like too much of a coincidence that Sookie Stackhouse and Stephanie Moyer appear at our bar within days of each other."

"Yes. I've been thinking the same thing."

* * *

I spent the next day primping. Mani, pedi, shopping, showering, shaving, I even blow-dried my hair. If I could think of it, I did it. After two nights vampire-free, I finally felt relatively safe enough to venture out of my little house for some Molly-Time.

Okay, fuck that. I'll tell you the truth. If I were an amputee, I still would've dragged myself down the road just to get to the church. Tonight was Bill's speech for the Descendants of the Glorious Dead and I wasn't going to miss it for the world.

When True Blood had premiered on HBO, I didn't want to get into it. There were so many shows that always tried to take advantage of the vampire phenomenon and I didn't want to buy into them anymore. Moonlight (a badly done rip-off of Angel), Twilight (X-men meets glittery blood-drinkers), Blade (the first one was great, but its sequels seemed to be forced out to make another buck). Everything seemed like a badly-written copy of Buffy and I hated it. I wasn't going to be bought out by The Man just on the promise that there might be blood.

But one night in college, I was coming down softly from a couple tabs of acid and the remote was on the other side of the room, so I found myself watching the show. I was in an enlightened state and wanted to give it a shot. Everybody deserved one chance to prove if they were a fuckup or not.

At first, it was just Jason on drugs that got me hooked into the story. The trees seemed to be breathing and sparks were flying out of flowers and I could really empathize with his feelings. That was one thing that I loved about acid... watching TV and movies and being sucked into the storyline. There was even one time that I was tripping so hard that I honestly imagined myself as a character in a horror movie I was watching. I wound up sitting there, talking along, running with them from zombies. When they were scared, I was scared. When they were brave, I was balls out and ready to fight for my life.

So when Bill came onto the stage and started talking about his life in the Civil War, I found myself magnetized by his presence, his words. When he talked about the battlefield and Tolliver Humphries dying, tears trailed down my cheeks and I mourned the loss of human life. I sobbed about the evils of war.

Jesus, I can't help but laugh at myself for how much of a hippie liberal I become on LSD.

Anyways, from that moment on I was hooked. I downloaded all the episodes and wound up balls deep in True Blood. Jason was the funniest character, by far, but the whole series was absolutely perfect. I even loved Sookie, despite my hatred for Anna Paquin's casting as Rogue in X-men and skinny blondes in general. She was a deep character, a southern woman with manners and a kick-ass sense of survival. I read the books shortly after, which were amazingly like the series but with more detail, and the rest was history.

So I knew that, no matter what, I had to see Bill's speech. If there was one good thing that this wish gave me, it was the chance for me to be there for it, live and in person. And I thanked Q or whatever Powers That Be for the opportunity.

I was so excited when I parked at the church; it felt like I was going to prom or even my own wedding. I knew I looked great in a navy blue, modestly-lengthed sundress, even if my hair were a little stiffer from the hairspray I'd used than it should be. I was fucking nailing this night. I even brought a lemon merengue pie for the buffet. It was store-bought, but I'd taken the lid and price tag off so I could pretend that I'd made it myself.

There were few other cars in the parking lot and I became self-conscious when I realized how early I was. The sun had set, but the sky was still light enough to be considered day. Leaving the pie behind, I decided to go in and check the place out. Maybe if there were enough people inside, I wouldn't have to hang out in my truck until everything started.

I regretted the idea as soon as I walked through the large, wooden double doors. The first person I saw was Adele Stackhouse. It had been one thing to meet Dawn- we'd barely spoke to each other and I was hardly invested in her short plotline. But Gran was a major character. I knew how she'd taken care of Sookie and Jason when their parents had died, that she made iced tea, that she'd fought for Bill to be here even when people told her she'd go to hell for it.

My eyes started to water as I took in her gray hair and warm eyes. She was my own grandmother, whose hand I'd held as she took weeks to die in hospice care. Suddenly, I didn't feel like I could handle this. But I was already telling myself I was strong enough to handle anything when Gran looked up from some of the dishes of food she'd been organizing on a table and smiled at me when she saw me.

"Come on in! Are you here for Mr. Compton's speech?"

I nodded quietly and wiped my eyes, chuckling to compensate for how sad I must look. "Yes, I think I'm pretty early. I can come back?"

"No, no, it's fine... You know, I'm sorry, but I don't think we've met before?"

I smiled politely and crossed the room to meet her where she was standing. "No, ma'am. I'm Mo-" I cleared my throat to suppress the slip of using my real name. "Excuse me. I'm mighty glad to introduce myself. Anna Paquin." I held out my hand to shake hers and, after a moment of wiping her fingers clean from cake icing on a napkin, she returned the gesture.

"Adele Stackhouse. Treasurer of the D.G.D. I'm so glad you could make it out to see us tonight. Do you live in Bon Temps or are you visiting?"

"I just moved in to the park behind Merlotte's? Not even a week ago."

"Oh! So you know Sam Merlotte, then. Well, me and my granddaughter live just a few miles east of you, down Hummingbird Road. You should come by for lunch sometime and have a visit so we can get to know you better."

I swallowed down a lump in my throat at the idea that lunch with her would never happen, but nodded in reply. "That sounds wonderful." This was not a topic of conversation I was going to be able to manage well, so I did what I do best. Change the freaking subject. "Since I'm so early, is there anything I can give you a hand with? Setting up chairs?"

Gran shook her head slowly and tapped her chin as she scanned the room. "No, no. I'm leaving that for the boys to do when they get in." A light bulb practically appeared above her head as she opened her eyes widely with excitement. "But we could use some help folding programs! That is, if you don't mind?"

"Sounds great. Not a problem at all."

The warmth of her hand on my elbow as she led me to a folding chair was almost too much for me, and I collapsed into it in a rather un-lady-like way. I quickly regained my composure, though, and attempted to cross my legs at the ankles. Being around Gran made me want to be more classy in an effort to impress her.

A group of about 8 women came trickling out towards the back with cups of coffee and we introduced ourselves to each other before they sat down in a circle of chairs near me. Some of the older ladies pulled out knitting work from their bags and the others just sipped from their cups as they chatted.

"So you just moved to Bon Temps?" Laci Anderson asked me as she adjusted her baby girl, Geneva, in a stroller.

"Yes. I don't really know anyone yet, so it's a pleasure to meet y'all."

Mrs. Dufresne leaned forward from her chair, "Where did you move from, Anna?"

I was none too eager to start lying about a backstory, so I kept to the truth as much as I could. "Florida. Vero Beach?"

She nodded. "Oh, okay, my sister lives down in New Smyrna Beach."

"Right, I know where that is. Haven't been there personally, but I've seen the sign enough times on trips to Daytona."

"So what brings you to our little town?"

"Just looking for a nice place to settle down…"

Laci looked up from her baby and interrupted the flow of our conversation. "If you're looking to get to know some of the women here, and if you have any free time on your hands, you should get involved in community service."

"Well, I don't know. Things have been really busy for me, but I'd like to help out where I can."

Mrs. Lottley laughed a little and attempted to save me from the conversation. "Don't you mind her, Anna. Laci's taken it upon herself to be the recruiter for women into the Rotary Club."

"Oh, it's fine-"

Laci's feathers had been ruffled a little bit and she turned in her seat to face Mrs. Lottley. "We've all got to do our civic duty. And I'm tired of the Rotary's Gentleman's Club. I'm just trying to do my part to even out the ranks"

"Ever since they changed their motto, you've been up in arms with your 'part.'" Mrs. Lottley continued her knitting and never met Laci, or anyone else, in the eye as she talked to them. "If you had your way, we'd re-write the Bible to call God an 'It.'"

Getting so thoroughly rebuked by the older woman only seemed to rile Laci up more. "Equal rights for women are a right, not a privilege, Abigail. The Rotary Club and the Moose Lodge and the Eagles are forced to let us in but they don't gotta acknowledge us because we don't have the numbers. If all of us joined together, we could make real change in this town."

Mrs. Dufresne mumbled to herself, "Oh, here we go..."

Laci faced me and began her well-rehearsed hard sell. "Do you know that there are more women than men in Bon Temps, and yet we're less than 10% of the members in the Rotary. If you join us, you're another vote and another step in the direction towards showing the men in this town that we should be heard."

I swallowed and stared down at the programs in my lap as I kept folding. "I don't think you would want me on your side."

"Oh, honey, of course you're wanted! All women are welcome! Don't think just because we won the right to vote that we're not still suffering. You know, women are still making 75 cents on every dollar a man makes, doing the same job!"

"Yeah, I hear that complaint all the time. But don't men wind up spending all that extra money on us anyways? We still live in a society where it's the right thing for men to do to pay for dinner, engagement rings, everything like that." All the women lifted their heads up at that, and I blushed, telling myself to shut up.

"So that makes it alright?"

"I'm just saying... it seems fair to give them an extra quarter when they wind up bringing it home to us."

Laci's face started turning redder like mine, but with anger rather than embarrassment. "Are you trying to say you like the way women are being treated unfairly?"

"Well, I mean..." I cleared my throat, before going on. I didn't want to make any enemies, but she'd asked so I figured I could speak my mind. "We're just sort of winning right now. I would take being a woman over a man any day. What do they really do that we can't? We're smarter than them, more loving, more mature. What do they really have that's better than us? Strength? That's dumb work. Let them do the construction on the highways while I read a book."

"But we have no power! There are hardly any women CEOs or politicians!"

I scoffed at that. "Okay, sure, let's say that. But who's really making the decisions? Who do they come home to and discuss things with? Who are they trying to impress with all that power? Us. The quote is that behind every great man is a great woman. So what if we're not in the spotlight, we're still in charge."

Mrs. Lottley laughed under her breath and most of the other women joined in a quiet titter. But Laci wasn't going to be done in that easily. "You've been brain-washed like all other women into thinking that our position isn't one of slavery! We're forced to stay home, or take lesser paid jobs as teachers and nurses, while they get to be doctors and astronauts."

"Please. We're the ones doing the brain-washing. Like you said, we're their mothers and teachers and nurses. We've spent generations forming the minds that exist today. Who do you talk to when you go to the doctor's office? The nurse. Then the doctor writes a little note on the prescription pad. He's a glorified secretary."

"Yeah, but he gets all the money when we're doing all the work."

"Sure, a little more pay, but all the risk. It's always been this way. In the days of cavemen, women stayed behind and ruled society while men risked their lives fighting wooly mammoths to bringing us food. They fight wars, and we reap the benefit. What does it hurt to pet their ego when they come home and say, 'Oh, honey, what a long day you've had, conquering France and all... Here, have some mead... You're so important, we couldn't live without you.' And then we're the queens of France while they nurse their battle wounds."

"I hardly doubt that all women love these so-called benefits so much that we're willing to risk our own pride for a pretty piece of jewelry."

Laci was making me feel stupid and angry, and I found myself looking around for some help from the other women, but they were quiet and pretending to ignore our conversation. I realized that if I was going to win this debate, I'd have to turn her own sensibilities against her.

"Maybe it's just me, but I don't think pride's something that's that easy to lose. I mean, look at the South. We lost the Civil War in the history books, but over a hundred years later, we're considered the real voice of America. When people in other countries think of Americans, they think of cowboys. They think of farmers. They think of the confederate rebels who were ready to fight for what they believed in. Between men and women, men are nothing but weak yankees who do nothing but talk and women are the real backbone of our nation."

Laci just harumphed and busied herself adjusting her baby's blanket. "I don't think a Floridian should be able to talk about being a member of the South. Hanging out at the beach all the time hardly makes you a debutante."

Mrs. Lottley looked up from her knitting at that point. "Florida was as much a part of the Confederacy as any state, Laci. Almost 5,000 Floridians died. You best remember that."

I smiled at her politely as Laci kept her mouth shut. "That many? That's a shame to hear, ma'am."

"Yes, the war of southern independence took far too many lives. My great grandfather being one of them."

A quiet woman whose name I'd remembered being Connie spoke up at that point. "They're sending Stanley back to Afghanistan in six weeks."

Laci pulled her daughter into her lap and gave her a bottle. "I'm sorry to hear that, Connie. Just proves my point that women are suffering the consequences of men in places of power."

Connie nervously played with the cup in her hands as she sat forward. "I just wish sometimes that we didn't have to have fight. If people could be reasonable and compromise, we wouldn't have to have these meetings to remember the lives we'd lost."

Mrs. Lottley held up the sweater she was knitting, then adjusted her needles. "I understand what you mean, but these things have to be done. Some people can't be talked to. Like Hitler."

I nodded in agreement. "If we didn't fight, who knows what world we'd be living in today."

Laci scoffed at that and rocked as she fed her daughter. "I'm sure the mothers of the sons that have died would prefer that world."

I continued facing the group, but asked my question in response to Laci, "But what about the mothers of the Baby Boomer generation? Half of us might not even be around right now if there hadn't been a world war two."

"But they wouldn't even know they were missing us. Women who lost children are surely more sad than women who didn't have any in the first place."

"Are you really saying that you'd prefer it if we had just let Hitler win instead of losing the lives of our soldiers? We might all be in concentration at camps at this-"

"No, I most certainly am not saying that. But if I had the chance to go back in time and kill Hitler before he took charge, I would."

I laughed a little, "If it hadn't been him, it would've been someone else. And we'd be in the same dilemma, except you killed a man."

She lifted up her head to glare at me. "You don't know that. Maybe no one would've taken over. Or maybe it'd be someone incompetent. We might be living in some beautiful Garden of Eden if someone had stopped Eve from eating that apple."

The gears in my head were turning faster than I could keep up and I softly whimpered, "But... you don't know what effects that would have... it'd be like a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa and starting a hurricane here..."

She held Geneva over her shoulder and patted the infant on the back in an attempt to make it burp. "Or maybe a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa causes a soft breeze here. That's something you don't seem to get, Anna. Changing the world doesn't necessarily mean that your comfortable little happiness ends. If you have the chance, you kill Hitler. You fight to make men and women equal. You stand up to stop injustice and do what you think is right. And hope it all turns out better for the people you love."

I opened my mouth to retort, then closed it. Laci was the kind of woman I couldn't see myself agreeing with on most things... but she sure as hell was doing something instead of nothing.

* * *

Author's Note: Sorry I took so long on the update, should be back on schedule now. Here's an extra long chapter to make up for it.

Author's Note #2: Totally forgot to mention that I've fixed up some of the previous chapters. No big changes that require re-reading, but Chapter 6's convo between Sam and Molly was tweaked just a bit to get everything to make more sense.

Author's Note #3: As always, Comments/Compliments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven: When The Mind Is Thinking, It Is Talking To Itself

I excused myself from the group and left the church to take a breath as my mind whirled with the possibilities in front of me. Sitting on the gate of my truck, I lit a cigarette and started debating my situation with the voices in my head.

Logical Molly: "Alright, it's a 50/50 decision when it boils down to it."

Other Mollys: "Ugh... Not again!"

Logical Molly: "We can either do nothing, or do something. Doing nothing still seems like the safest bet to me. That way we're just letting fate handle it. Doing something seems like a lot of hard work just to wind up with nothing better than an even chance that everything MIGHT turning into sunshine and rainbows rather than turd blossoms and apocalypse. Besides, I don't think we have the emotional fortitude to be able to handle it well if it's the latter."

Self-Hatred Molly: "I bet it's more likely than you think that whatever we do will turn out turd-style. We fuck EVERYTHING up."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "No. We need to risk it. Laci had a point that doing nothing is the coward's way out and we are NOT a coward. We are a brave, nut-punching, kick-ass chick who stands up for the underdog. Come on, we know the fucking FUTURE here! We have to do what we can to at least TRY and make this world a better place instead of just sitting around with our thumb up our collective ass."

Ethical Molly: "Theoretically, we don't HAVE to..."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "How can you say that? We can make a difference! It's that Bystander Good Samaritan Law thing or whatever. If we have the chance to help people, it's our duty to try!"

Ethical Molly: "Yes, we're bound by honor to do the right thing. But only for REAL people. And every single thing in this universe but us, technically, ain't real. This is a fictional town with fictional characters. Their histories and personalities are just figments of Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball's imagination. We don't owe them in any way. We're just a little girl playing with dolls here. Why should we care if they live or die?"

Logical Molly: "Hmm, that's an interesting point. But, if they're not real people, then there are no real life repercussions in it for us. We can save them or not save them and we don't have to feel guilty either way."

Stupid Molly: "This conversation is hurting my thinky parts."

Selfish Molly: "I say we fuck with 'em then! Or we don't touch them and just watch the show! I don't know. Let's just do whatever would make us the happiest. It's all about me!"

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "My God, I'm disappointed in myself. Why aren't we acknowledging the fact that it doesn't matter whether they're fictional or not. They still feel love and hate and sadness and joy. They're like artificial intelligences who have passed the Turing test. And I know we've seen enough episodes of the Outer Limits to build a sympathy for robots. It doesn't matter if they're not exactly like us; they still deserve the chance for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Sci-Fi Molly: "She's right. Who are we to define the idea of existence? We'll be just like the assholes in movies who wrongly think that robots or aliens are necessarily evil. We can't be the kind of person who starts picking and choosing who has the right to be helped and who doesn't."

Ethical Molly: "Fine. Fictional or not, I'll admit that we have to treat them like anything else."

Stupid Molly: "Seriously, guys... this is confusing... What's going on here?"

Logical Molly: "Stupid Molly has a point. We're getting out of control with the theorizing here and making it more complicated than it needs to be. We need to make this decision one step at a time. Are we going to help or are we going to step aside and allow fate to control the situation?"

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "We have to help."

Selfish Molly: "Whatever we decide, that's what I want to do."

Other Mollys: "I have no idea."

Logical Molly: "Is there any part of me that says we shouldn't try to change the timeline?"

Spiritual Molly: "Well, my gut says that fate will decide what's the right thing to do... But, since I truly believe that whatever choice we make is the one that is destined to be made, I guess I'm pretty much with Selfish Molly on this one."

Logical Molly: "Alright, then. The only part of me that has a strong feeling about this says we should help, so that's it. We have to do whatever we can. Now, how do we help?"

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "We have to right all the wrongs in this universe. Starting now, nobody dies."

Sci-Fi Molly: "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't right ALL the wrongs here. As soon as we change anything, it's game over. I'm not even sure whether what we think we know can be trusted since we've already changed things just by being here."

Logical Molly: "I don't know about that. Bill's speech was still on this day, Gran's still probably going to die tonight. We've barely talked to anyone in this town. I think it's a safe bet to assume that events are still happening the way we know them. At least for now."

Sci-Fi Molly: "That's because we really haven't talked to anyone besides Sam and some random people who don't really have anything to do with the True Blood storyline. But as soon as we make any major changes like saving someone's life, it's unlikely that we'll be able to affect anything else. It's like the continuity error of Biff and the Sports Almanac in Back to the Future 2. The writers never took into account the idea that the second that Biff started betting on sports games, him winning would have started affecting the timeline in a way that would make the rest of his knowledge of future events null and void. If we change something big enough, like saving someone's life, we can't be sure that we can depend on the Book of True Blood to be true anymore. If we're going to do this, we only have one chance."

Logical Molly: "So we need to figure out which moment to change that would do the most good, because if we started changing things willy-nilly then we wouldn't be able to be in the right place at the right time for anything else."

Ethical Molly: "I think we should determine that by how we can save the most lives. It's the only fair way. We can't just guess what would make people the happiest."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "I say we kick Drew Marshall's ass and turn him into the cops. That'll save Gran and Amy."

Logical Molly: "But if we stop Mary-Ann, we can save Eggs, Daphne, Ms. Jeanette, Karl. That's four to two."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "Please, no one's going to miss them, except maybe Eggs. They were bad people! Sidekicks to villains! We should be saving the people who deserve the right to live. I mean, sure, Amy was no angel, but she was on the road to change."

Ethical Molly: "If you're going to start picking and choosing whose lives are more important, we should take into account factors like how many people depended on them and how much of their lives they had to live. Like Gran was an old woman who would only be guaranteed another decade on this Earth, at most, and she just had Jason and Sookie to take care of. But Ms. Jeanette was raising a bunch of grandbabies. She should count for more."

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "But Gran's a good person! She was a matriarch of Bon Temps. Her family was the whole town, if you're thinking about it that way."

Ethical Molly: "Daphne and Karl might've had a family. They might've even reformed and found the cure for cancer. You don't know how much good they could've done for the world if we saved their lives. For you to think that Gran's and Amy's lives are more important than four others is just really... unethical!"

Logical Molly: "Okay, okay, listen. The only fair way to handle this is to base our decision on the numbers of deaths and facts alone. We can't let 'could be's and 'might be's effect this. Besides, you're forgetting that we can't just kill Mary-Ann. She's a god. The only way we can get rid of her is by waiting until she's had her ritual to call on Bacchus or whatever, meaning that Ms. Jeanette, Daphne and Karl MUST die in the process. So stopping Drew Marshall is still in the lead with saving the most lives. You know what? We should be writing all of this down. Just let me handle this."

The logical, list-making portion of my brain kicked into overdrive as I pulled out one of the blank notebooks from my purse. I began by writing down the name of every person who I could remember dying on the show, but I frowned when I felt like I was forgetting people. I needed the Book of True Blood to remind me of what I was missing. It really was unethical to be making this choice unless I had all the facts available to me. I checked the time on my burner cell phone and realized that I only had a little under an hour until Bill's speech, and I didn't know if I could make it home and back before it started.

My sentimental side took a longing glance at the church for a moment, desperately wanting to see one of my favorite scenes of the show. But logic and heroics took over the decision-making part of my brain and I pouted as I jumped in the truck to get going. Yes, missing Bill talk about the Civil War was a severe bummer, but this was more important. I had a responsibility now and, if I was going to choose to save Gran's life, I needed to figure out what had to be done before it was too late.

No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't speed on the way home and it was twenty agonizing minutes before I arrived. I ran into the house and threw my purse on the couch before rushing over to the dishwasher and pulled the other notebook out of its hidey-hole.

I took a seat, indian-style, on the couch and began biting my fingernails as I compared the list I'd made earlier with the episode guide I'd made of the show. I had forgotten a significant number of moments where random guards had died here and there, and a few less-than-major characters who had passed as well. When I was done, I had a list of a little over 40 people dying during the four seasons of the series. I thought it might have been more than that, but I was pretty sure I wasn't missing anyone.

It would've been an easy choice if a lot of people had died in one big event, but there were really just a lot of little murders here and there. I categorized the names by the people who had killed them and promised myself that I would have to accept that whoever had killed the most people, that's who I would stop. All the voices in my head agreed on the fairness of that decision.

There was a tie for last place between Amy for staking Eddie and Jessica for taking too much blood from that truck driver, so I crossed both of them off the list. While there was no guilt for that truck driver dying, I did feel bad that Eddie wouldn't be able to live. But I figured it was probably a good thing since he might've killed Jason or at least gotten him into trouble if he'd survived. Sam had killed MaryAnn and his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, but I really couldn't stop their deaths so I counted him as only having killed one person and he was crossed off the list, too.

The next characters were Jason and Eric with two a piece. Eric had probably killed lots of people that I didn't know about, but I could only count the redneck in the basement and Talbot directly to him. Jason had killed Eggs and Franklin Mott.

I went backwards like that for a while, scratching out names, until I got to Bill which made me have to start the whole thing over again when I realized I was going to have to re-think my strategy. Bill had killed the Mexican stripper with Russell, Uncle Bartlett, at least 3 were guards when he was kidnapped, and so many others. But, most specifically and most importantly, he had killed Longshadow. I realized that if I stopped Bill from killing him when he tried to strangle Sookie, Bill wouldn't have had to go see the Magister for punishment. That meant Jessica wouldn't have had to die. If Jessica weren't turned into a vampire, the trucker would have lived as well. Three more people who could be saved were added to his list just by changing that one event.

I grunted in frustration and ripped out the piece of paper from the spiral as I started re-writing the list, this time organizing them based on the events that led to them and arranging it in chronological order. I couldn't believe how stupid I'd been before. Suddenly, the whole game was changed.

I figured if I put Drew Marshall in jail tonight, it wouldn't just save Gran's, Amy's, and his own life. Without Gran's death as a motivator, Sookie might not go back to Bill and lose her virginity to him. If they never rekindled their relationship, Sookie might not have ever went with Bill to find out who was embezzling money from Eric, saving Longshadow, the trucker and Jessica. And if they didn't have sex, Bill might never have found out about Sookie's friendly uncle and Bartlett would live.

And it was after Gran's funeral that Tara hooked up with Sam again. If they didn't, she might not have ever asked him for money for the exorcism, so MaryAnn wouldn't have been called to Bon Temps. That would save her, Daphne, Karl, Eggs and Ms. Jeanette. That's 12.

But, even though it was a bit of a longshot that everything would turn out that well and no matter how many people I thought I might be able to save by stopping Drew Marshall, it still didn't beat the number of lives lost during Russell Edgington's storyline. If I got rid of him before season three, Bill would never be kidnapped and kill all those weres and vamp guards. That Hispanic stripper would still live. Russell wouldn't kill the Magister. Bill, Sookie and Alcide wouldn't kill Lorena and Cooter and like ten guards in their escape. Eric wouldn't have killed Talbot, so Russell wouldn't kill the anchor man or the Male Hooker in his sorrow. And Franklin Mott would never come after Tara and find himself on the wrong end of a wooden bullet.

When everything was said and done, Drew Marshall's serial killing spree didn't have anything to do with Russell wanting Bill as leverage against the Queen, so it was him who had to be stopped. The numbers didn't lie.

But I couldn't kill a vampire who was like 4 millennia old. I couldn't turn him into any authorities when he hadn't done anything wrong. I just wasn't smart or strong enough to trick him into meeting the final death.

But Eric was. If I went to him and gave him Russell Edgington's name as the one who lead Operation Werewolf and caused the death of his parents, he could come up with some sort of plan to kill him. Eric was a fucking genius when it came to this stuff. I could tell him that Sookie was a fairy and we could use her to get rid of Russell and save everyone. Sure, that put Sookie in danger's way, but, since Eric was going to find out what she was anyways and didn't kill her for it then, I couldn't see a way that this would turn out differently.

Still, maybe he didn't kill her because he got to know her and liked her. If I told him that she was a fairy right now, maybe he'd kidnap her. Or even kill Bill. Maybe I could wait until after Dallas before I told him about Russell and her, and he'd have grown enough of an affection towards her that he wouldn't kill her. It didn't really matter as long as the King of Mississippi died before he kidnapped Bill.

This was all really hard to think about. I couldn't be sure of anything. There were too many pieces to move around and I wasn't good at chess. I couldn't think three moves ahead. That's why I needed Eric's help in the first place. There had to be someone as smart as him that I could talk to about this sort of thing and get advice.

Sam, Jason, Sookie, Bill. No. Tara, Arlene, Terry? No. Everyone in this town was far too stupid when it came to this sort of thing. A psychic? Where would I find a psychic?

I started banging my head with the palm of my hand and all I could think was that Eric was the only one who could untangle this Gordian Knot of timelines. Eric, Eric, Eric. And then it came to me.

Eric.

If I went to him and told him I could tell the future, tell him things that I knew about his past that no one else knew, he would have to believe that I knew things I shouldn't. I would dangle the carrot in front of him that I knew the name of the person who killed his parents, but then say I wanted something in return. I could tell him I needed help with a novel or something. Hell, I could even get him to get Bartolomeo off my ass. Or some money! Or even a new identity or something! He'd do anything I asked when I promised that he would finally get his revenge.

Logical Molly: "I think that's a great plan. I can't see any flaws in it."

Selfish Molly: "Since we had to miss Bill's speech due to stupid responsibilities, I say we go NOW. NOW NOW NOW! If we're saving the world, we deserve to be able to save this night with something interesting to do."

Logical Molly: "I don't know about this… Don't you think we should sleep on it? It doesn't matter if we put this off a few days."

Selfish Molly: "If it doesn't matter if we put it off or not, then we should go now. I want to go NOWWWWWWW."

Logical Molly: "Well, I just think if we took a little more time to plan, then…"

Selfish Molly: "NOW!"

At this point, Selfish Molly's voice became so loud that it drowned out whatever Logical Molly was saying and I decided to obey it. If only to shut up the craving of not staying cooped up in this house for one more goddamn night.

Bad-Ass Superhero Molly: "DIBS ON GETTING TO PICK OUT WHAT WE WEAR!"

* * *

The two hour drive to Shreveport was spent trying to ignore my logical side and being excited about getting my hands dirty in the True Blood universe. All I could think about was how well this would turn out for me. I decided that, along with money, a new identity, and Bartolomeo getting kicked out of Area Five, I was going to demand privileges to go to Dallas with the group. Hell, I could force Eric to keep me by his side at all times as an advisor. I held all the cards, why couldn't I get everything I ever wanted? I was going to be able to get everything I ever wanted out of this deal and be the savior of like 30 people. It was all going to my head, to be honest with you.

Still, I regretted letting my bad-ass personality choose my clothes. I mean, I wasn't dressed ridiculously or anything, just a black tee and jeans, but I couldn't stop myself from wearing the knee-high boots underneath. They just made me feel too bad-ass. My hair was pulled back in a tight pony-tail and I considered myself battle-ready.

When I pulled into Fangtasia, I sat in the car and checked myself in the rear-view mirror. The makeup that I'd worn from when I'd dressed for church was still there, but faded, so I re-applied my lipstick as I went over my plan of arrival. I was going to walk up straight to the front door like a woman on a mission and ignore the line. I'd tell Pam or whoever was manning the door that I needed to see Eric immediately, and it was very important. They'd open the door for me and I'd stalk to Eric's throne and tell him that I had valuable information for him and he'd do well to give me the time to listen to it.

But, of course, like all my excellent plans, it was ruined. Before I was even done with my lipstick, Pam was at my door and pulling me out of the truck. "Stephanie Moyer. And here I was, thinking we might just never get the chance to see you again. Silly me."

* * *

Author's Note #1: If any of you read the other chapter eleven that I posted on Wednesday, forget it. As you can tell, I decided to go in a completely different direction. I'm sorry for the late update in this case, but the tides- they are a changin'. And it's kinda insane. It required a LOT of thought and research and I'm starting to get dizzy thinking about all the effects of time travel. Seriously, my thinky parts hurt. Anyways, hope you like it! The next chapter will be a LOT of Eric and I'll get that out as soon as I can.

Author's Note #2: Comments/Critiques/Concerns go in the Reviews. Feedback makes more and better chapters. Thanks for reading!


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